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Malcolm  J.  McLcod 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL   MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


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^^.-^    U a  _ 


UKIVBESITY  of  CALiFUttf^i 

AT 

LOS  ANGELES 

LIBRARY 


Earthly  Discords,  and  How  to 
Heal  Them 


Earthly  Discords,  and 
How  to  Heal  Them 


By 

Malcolm  James   McLeod 

Author  of  "  Heavenly  Harmonies  for  Earthly  Living  " 


Chicago      New  York      Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

LONDON  AND  EDINBURGH 
MCMIII 


?    <  ?-,  'X    i    "-S 
_L  cf  ij  t>-  -^  *J 


Copyright,  1903 

By  FLEMING  H.  REVELL   COMPANY 

March 


CHICAGO:  63  WASHINGTON  STREET 
NEW  YORK  :  158  FIFTH  AVENUE 
TORONTO  :  27  RICHMONIJ  STRKET.  W. 
LONDON  :  21  PATF.RNOSTER  SQUARE 
EDINBURGH  :     30    ST.    MARY    STREET 


TO   HER   WHO   FIRST  TAUGHT   ME   HOW 

TO    HEAL    life's    DISCORDS,  AND   WHOSE    OWN    LIFE 

IS   A   HEAVENLY    HARMONY — 

MY   MOTHER 


05 
C5 


■a 

o 


Education,      Legislation,      Reforma- 
tion, Regeneration. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Education,  Legislation,  Reforma- 
tion, Regeneration;  or.  The  Col- 
lege, THE  Congress,  the  Club,  the 
Church. 

Ours  is  admittedly  an  age  of  denial,  but 
one  truth  shines  out  so  bold,  so  clear,  so  evi- 
dent, that  no  rash  doubter  has  ever  had  the 
front  to  challenge  it — there  is  such  a  thing  as 
sin,  and  this  world  is  full  of  it.  When  some 
one  asked  Rowland  Hill  if  he  believed  in  a 
personal  devil,  the  famous  preacher  is  reported 
to  have  said,  with  characteristic  bluntness, 
"A  personal  devil?  Madam,  he  has  branch 
establishments  here  in  Somerset!"  Foolish 
to  quarrel  with  those  holy  men  of  old  when 
they  say,  "I  was  born  in  sin  and  shapen  in 
iniquity."  "The  heart  is  deceitful  above  all 
things,  and  desperately  wicked. ' ' 

With  the  commentator  we  may  quarrel  if 
v/e  feel  so  affected,  but  with  the  text  it  is,  to 
say  the  least,  not  wise,  especially  when  the 
conscience  of  the  race  answers  to  it.  The 
Bible  is  an  honest  book.     Never  does  it  fiat- 


Earthly  Discords. 

ter,  never  does  it  hold  out  false  hopes  of  ref- 
uge, never  raise  any  vain  alarm.  It  states 
the  simple  facts.  From  first  to  last  it  is  a 
picture  of  human  weakness,  human  woe.  It 
paints  all  the  wrinkles  and  the  blemishes. 
Depravity  is  written  on  every  page — idolatry, 
hypocrisy,  lust, 'shame,  guilt,  tears,  blood — and 
whether  we  be  pre-millenarians  or  post,  one 
thing  is  certain,  the  battle  is  raging,  the  darkness 
is  dense,  and  morning  seemeth  not  yet  at  hand. 
Some  there  are  who  waste  their  precious 
hours  of  thought  and  labor  discussing  the  ques- 
tion how  sin  entered  into  the  world,  how  it 
came  to  have  so  dire  and  dreadful  a  dominion. 
Never  once,  let  it  be  noted,  does  Inspiration 
handle  that  vexed  and  vexing  question.  It 
occupies  just  one  chapter  trying  to  tell  us, 
and  that  chapter  is  so  flexible  as  to  worry  defi- 
nition; and  the  other  eleven  hundred  and 
eighty-six  are  concerned  with  how  to  get  it 
out.  How  to  overthrow  the  ruling  dynasty! 
Be  that,  then,  the  subject  of  our  paper!  Not 
how  did  the  Evil  Spirit  enter,  how  rather  may 
the  Demon  be  thrust  out. 


All  society  is  on  the  march  toward  a  city 
called  happiness,  and  to  the  earnest   leaders 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

of  progress  four  lines  of  travel  suggest  them- 
selves. Some  there  are  who  would  guide  us 
up  along  the  pathway  to  the  college  fountain, 
education  being  their  watchword.  This  is  the 
favorite  approach  of  the  rationalistic  school  of 
thinkers.  "Give  us  better  schools,  better 
academies,  better  institutions  of  learning," 
they  cry.  "Instead  of  putting  off  the  old 
man  dress  him  up  and  send  him  away  to  col- 
lege," was  the  stinging  thrust  of  Dean  Swift. 
The  culture  of  the  heart  for  holiness  can  be 
had,  we  are  told,  in  much  the  same  way  as 
the  culture  of  the  taste  for  the  beautiful. 
When  the  wardens  of  our  prisons  convey  to 
us  the  sad  intelligence  that  the  majority  of 
their  inmates  can  neither  read  nor  write, 
"surely  indeed,  "  we  exclaim,  "ignorance  is 
the  mother  of  crime!"  Furthermore,  as  the 
delicate  laws  of  living  have  been  mastered  the 
average  length  of  life  has  grown.  With  a 
more  perfect  knowledge  of  the  human  anatomy 
comes  a  longer  lease  for  the  race,  and  we  are 
being  informed  that  the  same  is  possible  in  the 
sphere  of  morals.  Let  the  church  discontinue 
the  sending  of  missionaries  to  the  Dark  Con- 
tinent. A  railroad  after  the  idea  of  some 
Cecil  Rhodes  will  show  larger  and  better  re- 

13 


Earthly  Discords. 

turns.      Inform    man's   intellect -and  he  will 
not  be  slow  himself  to  soon  reform  his  heart. 


This  is  the  theory  that  to-day  obtains  a 
wide  and  patient  hearing  at  the  judgment  bar 
of  many  cultured  thinkers.  And  it  is  not  new 
nor  strange;  it  has  numbered  its  advocates 
indeed  ever  since  the  days  of  the  Renaissance. 
With  the  encyclopaedists  it  was  a  living  ques- 
tion. Perhaps  no  one  name  is  more  familiar 
along  this  line  of  travel  than  that  of  Rousseau. 
His  first  literary  venture,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, was  when  he  undertook  to  compete  for 
a  prize  offered  by  the  Academy  of  Dijon  for 
the  best  dissertation  on  the  subject,  "Whether 
the  progress  of  the  sciences  and  of  letters 
has  tended  to  corrupt  or  elevate  the  morals  of 
mankind,"  in  the  which  he  condemned  civili- 
zation most  severely.  The  ideas  expressed 
thirteen  years  later  in  his  last  work,  "Emile, " 
showed  no  change,  and  for  these  he  suffered 
exile. 

"Emile"  is  really  a  treatise  on  education 
in  the  guise  of  fiction,  its  teaching  being  that 
civilization  brings  with  it  moral  decline,  that 
only  as  man  comes  naked  from  the  hand  of 
nature  is  he  truly  happy,  in  proof  of  which 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

he  calls  up  the  great  kingdoms  of  the  past, 
showing  how  Athens  was  morally  on  a  lower 
level  than  Sparta,  "how  astronomy  has  been 
the  source  of  superstition,  ethics  of  self- 
esteem,  and  how  the  study  of  the  arts  has 
given  birth  to  a  lazy  luxury. ' ' 


One  criticism  we  feel  ever  warranted  in 
pressing  against  our  time  is  its  tendency  to 
bravado.  We  so  boast  about  our  glorious 
age  and  its  achievements!  But  surely  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  in  architecture,  sculp- 
ture, art,  law,  government,  and  philosophy 
the  scholars  and  specialists  of  Greece  and 
Rome  were  our  masters.  Some  one  notes 
how  the  world  to-day  has  not  a  single  phil- 
osopher to  compare  with  Aristotle,  not  an 
orator  to  rival  Demosthenes  or  Cicero,  not  a 
poet  to  class  with  Homer  or  Virgil,  no  his- 
torian to  compete  with  Tacitus  or  Herodotus. 
Scholars  indeed  tell  us  that  the  world's  four 
greatest  historians  are  Herodotus,  Thucydides, 
Tacitus,  and  Gibbon,  of  whom  but  one  be- 
longs to  modern  times.  Little  question  that 
the  tragedies  of  Sophocles  are  the  most  per- 
fect in  literature;  and  in  the  realm  of  comedy 
who  disputes  the  empire  of  Aristophanes.''     In 

15 


Earthly  Discords. 

satire  Juvenal,  in  dramatic  power  Plautus, 
reign  supreme.  Beginning  with  Solon  and 
Sappho,  who  come  upon  the  stage  about  6oo 
B.  C,  and  traveling  down  a  stretch  of  three 
hundred  years  or  so  along  the  shores  of  Pelo- 
ponnesus, what  a  list  of  worthies  one  salutes 
by  the  way! 

-^  Here  are  vEschylus,  ^schines,  Anacreon, 
Aristides,  Anaxagoras,  Euripides,  Epicurus, 
Empedocles,  Isocrates,  Lysias,  Lycurgus, 
Xenophon,  Parmenides,  Pindar,  Simonides 
Pythagoras,  Plautus,  Socrates,  Thales, 
Terence,  Zeno,  Euclid,  not  forgetting  to  add 
the  greatest  of  them  all,  Plato,  who  was  born 
the  year  that  Pericles  died.  Now,  without 
purposing  to  follow  Rousseau  in  his  sweeping 
censure,  yet  the  startling  fact  abides  unchal- 
lenged, that  this  golden  age  of  learning  was 
the  most  corrupt  age  that  the  brave  little 
peninsula  had  ever  witnessed.  Corinth,  her 
center  of  art  and  literature  and  commerce,  was 
a  very  Babylon  of  iniquity.  Likewise  Athens! 
And  Egypt  and  Rome  repeat  the  same  sad, 
shameful  story.  How  any  honest  student  of 
history  can  advance  education  as  a  cure  for 
life's  ills  were  passing  strange  and  puzzling 
in  the  light  of  Egypt  and  Greece  and  Rome. 
16 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

One  of  the  interesting  studies  in  nature  is 
her  trick  of  opposites.  If  her  ocean  can  ter- 
rify it  can  also  transport,  and  for  every  poet 
that  writes  of  her  rage  another  notes  her  re- 
pose. The  fires  that  warm  our  dwellings 
burn  down  our  cities,  and  the  winds  that  waft 
the  welcome  odors  of  lake  and  mountain  hesi- 
tate not  to  mow  down  trees  and  crops  and 
temples.  Vinegar  and  sugar  are  composed 
of  the  same  ingredients,  yet  the  one  is  sweet, 
the  other  sour.  The  same  elements  that  pro- 
duce tea  also  produce  strychnine,  and  the 
plant  that  furnishes  food  not  infrequently 
distils  poison.  Singular  soil!  Just  as  willing 
to  furnish  the  drug  that  deadens  as  the  fruit 
that  delights,  like  the  noted  French  criminal, 
Marie  D'Aubray,  who  was  the  nurse  and  the 
anathema  of  her  children.  A  similar  contra- 
diction repeats  itself  in  man's  career;  his  vir- 
tue being  the  other  side  of  his  vice.  Love 
let  loose  becomes  lust.  As  the  wheat  and 
corn  of  the  Kansas  prairies  fill  the  granaries 
of  the  nation  and  also  the  intoxicating  cup 
that  steals  the  brain,  the  honor,  and  the  good 
name,  just  so  do  eating  and  drinking  often- 
times serve  the  double  end  of  ennobling  the 
body  and  debasing  it.     Even  waiting  on  the 

17 


Earthly  Discords. 

Lord  may  close  in  indolence.      For  alas!  all 
things  have  their  use  and  abuse. 

How  clearly  and  unmistakably  this  dual 
outcome  may  be  read  in  the  history  of  those 
drilled  in  the  learning  of  the  schools!  As  the 
fertility  of  the  soil  is  sometimes  its  embarrass- 
ment, causing  the  weeds  and  grasses  to  crowd 
out  the  rich  grain,  so  the  trained  mind  may 
be  fertile  to  invent  evil  rather  than  good. 
Some  years  ago  a  Boston  jury  was  struck 
with  wonder  at  the  bold  oath  of  a  noted 
criminal,  who  declared  on  the  witness-stand 
that  he  had  spent  five  years  in  a  great  school 
of  science  studying  mechanics,  and  all  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  breaking  into  a  certain  New 
England  bank.  Who  of  us  can  read  the  life 
of  an  Aaron  Burr  or  Benedict  Arnold  and  not 
feel  that  one  of  the  grave  dangers  threatening 
our  country's  future  is  educated  treachery? 
Less  than  a  decade  of  years  ago  a  man  was 
convicted  in  the  courts  of  Philadelphia,  whose 
life  of  shame  and  crime  the  police  admit  to 
be  without  a  parallel  in  the  records  of  the 
Rogue's  Gallery.  This  evil  genius  was  a  col- 
lege graduate,  a  doctor  of  medicine,  and  a 
post-graduate  at  Ann  Arbor.  He  could  com- 
mit a  crime  so  cleverly  and  cover  up  his  tracks 
iS 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

so  dexterously  as  for  years  to  baffle  detection. 
He  was  tried  and  found  guilty  of  arson, 
forgery,  bigamy,  note-raising,  and  the  death 
of  more  than  half  a  dozen  of  his  fellow-crea- 
tures. So  accomplished  was  he  in  the  slaking 
of  his  thirst  for  bloodshed  that  he  slipped  the 
authorities  of  almost  every  state  in  the  union! 
Surely  it  were  not  difficult  to  see  how  this 
man's  college  diploma  but  served  to  sharpen 
his  weapons,  and  make  him  all  the  more 
dangerous  a  disciple  of  Bakunin  and  Proudhon. 
For  knowledge  is  power,  but  a  power  for 
evil  as  truly  as  for  good.  Does  not  Milton 
make  Lucifer  use  his  knowledge  for  nothing 
but  evil?  A  man's  genius  may  be  a  genius 
for  infamy.  The  sharper  the  blade  the  more 
dangerous  the  dagger.  The  history  of  the 
world  is  an  open  commentary  on  the  fact  that 
along  with  the  culture  of  the  mind  must  go 
the  culture  of  the  conscience.  If  education 
could  save  the  world,  then  it  ought  to  be  true 
that  the  greatest  intellects  shine  for  very 
beauty  of  holiness  and  soul-loveliness.  But 
alas!  how  not  infrequently  our  study  hastens 
us  to  confess  the  very  converse.  Instance 
Goethe,  who  has  been  called  "the  most  splen- 
did specimen  of  culture  ever  presented  to  the 

19 


Earthly  Discords. 

world."  Poet  was  he,  geologist,  anatomist, 
osteologist,  florist,  philosopher.  His  inquiries 
into  the  nature  of  light  would  have  been  re- 
spectable had  he  confined  himself  to  this 
branch  of  research  alone.  He  is  the  apostle 
of  self-culture.  Scarcely  any  department  of 
science  or  letters  on  which  he  was  not  an 
authority!  But  how  far  short  this  great  name 
from  our  ideal  of  the  true  man!  How  selfish! 
Hov/  unworthy  to  woman!  How  impure  the 
atmosphere  of  his  study!  How  lacking 
Weimar  in  the  spirit  of  a  true  home! 

When  our  missionaries  first  went  to  labor 
among  the  Indians  of  Upper  Canada,  the 
effort  was  made  to  coax  them  to  a  higher 
plane  by  the  culture  of  the  sense  of  taste. 
Homes  were  built,  schools  opened,  farms  fur- 
nished. The  attempt  was  essayed  to  make 
them  discontented  with  their  habits  of  living 
by  an  appeal  to  the  aesthetic.  But  after  years 
of  trial  the  endeavor  failed.  The  Indian  went 
back  to  his  wigwam,  and  raw  flesh,  and  robe 
of  skin,  and  tent  of  twig  and  bark,  and 
blanket. 

Dr.  Edward  Everett  Hale,  writing  recently 
on  the  duties  of  the  twentieth  century,  men- 
tioned (i)  a  four-track  railroad  from  Labrador 
20 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

to  Patagonia;  (2)  the  construction  of  a  similar 
road  across  Europe  and  Asia,  with  a  branch 
line  to  Odessa;  (3)  the  laying  of  another  great 
highway  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope  in  pursuance  of  Cecil  Rhodes's 
plan.  What  a  contrast  to  this  are  the  words 
of  Cardinal  Newman,  "The  Church  would 
rather  save  the  soul  of  one  poor,  whining  beg- 
gar of  Naples  or  one  poor  brigand  of  Palermo 
than  cover  Italy  with  railways  from  Piedmont 
to  Calabria. ' '  The  author  of  "  In  His  Steps' ' 
has  recently  written  a  magazine  article  which 
some  of  us  cannot  help  feeling  is  in  close 
touch  with  the  truth.  He  describes  the  im- 
pressions of  a  visit  to  his  alma  mater.  He 
notes  the  elegance,  the  luxur}'-,  in  contrast  to 
the  simplicity  of  former  years.  And  he  re- 
turns with  the  faith  forcing  itself  upon  his 
heart  that  we  have  not  gained  in  power  but  in 
things,  and  he  fears  the  future  is  in  danger  of 
becoming  an  "educated  paganism,  a  cultured 
heathenism,  that  will  lose  its  sense  of  spiritual 
ideals." 


Others  there  are— and  they  form  a  com- 
pany quite  considerable — whose  claim  is  that 
the  world  to-day  needs  nothing  so  much  as 


Earthly  Discords. 

righteous  legislation.  These  are  they  who 
hope  to  save  society  by  legal  enactment,  be- 
lieving that  an  iron  railing  at  the  top  of  the 
precipice  is  better  than  a  line  of  fully  equipped 
hospitals  at  the  bottom.  They  would  give  us 
laws  against  the  liquor  traffic;  laws  against 
the  gambling  hazard,  which  is  more  conta- 
gious than  plague,  more  infectious  than  fever; 
laws  to  cleanse  our  streets  against  the  social 
evil;  ordinances  checking  the  growing  disre- 
gard for  the  Sabbath;  and  in  every  line  would 
make  difficult  the  doing  of  wrong  and  easy 
the  effecting  of  right. 

In  the  ward  better  aldermen,  in  the  city 
better  councilmen,  in  the  state  better  repre- 
sentatives, in  the  executive  a  higher  type  of 
Christian  citizenship  who  would  see  that  laws 
were  first  enacted  then  enforced,  for  force  is 
the  watchword  of  this  salvation  army.  If  the 
criticism  be  valid,  that  the  penitentiary  rarely 
turns  out  penitents,  and  so  becomes  misleading 
in  its  inference,  just  so  these  champions  of 
the  legislative  hall  believe  in  prevention  as  the 
most  direct  footpath  to  another  golden  age. 
Love  failing  to  make  life  more  lovely,  let  law 
make  it  less  lawless.  This  is  the  cry  of  the 
new  democracy;  not  saved  souls  so  much  as 

22 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

a  wholesome  sentiment  in  which  a  true  Chris- 
tian ethic  is  applied  to  commerce,  politics, 
the  school,  the  home,  the  mine,  the  farm,  the 
factory.  For  it  is  still  true  that  the  million- 
aire-sweater lives  in  a  mansion  while  his 
workmen-slaves  die  in  garrets;  still  true 
that  female  poverty  is  sometimes  compelled 
to  sell  her  virtue  for  bread;  still  true  that 
hard-hearted  monopoly  grinds  as  never  before 
the  face  of  toil;  still  true  that  abject  yet  pre- 
ventible  misery  abounds.  When  we  are  re- 
minded of  the  fact  that  during  the  first  six 
months  of  this  current  year,  England  has 
shipped  more  opium  to  China  than  in  any 
previous  six  months  since,  in  1776,  the  East 
India  Company  took  the  commerce  of  the 
deadly  drug  under  its  control,  and  also  more 
missionaries  to  fill  the  gaps  made  by  our 
lamented  martyrs,  and  open  new  strategic 
points,  we  are  reminded  of  that  story  in 
Dante's  great  epic  in  which  a  man  in  the 
lower  regions  is  busy  weaving  for  himself  a 
long  rope  of  hay  with  which  he  means  to  pur- 
chase liberty,  but  for  every  strand  he  finishes, 
a  herd  of  oxen  hidden  behind  a  wall  are  eating 
up  the  other  end  of  the  juicy  hemp  with  a 
joyful  and  contented  relish.  Thus  does  the 
23 


Earthly  Discords. 

church  weave  ropes  of  salvation  for  other 
appetites  to  feed  and  fatten  upon. 

The  trouble  with  all  branches  of  legislative 
reform  is  that  they  lessen  evil  without  abolish- 
ing it.  They  minimize,  but  do  not  abrogate. 
"The  law  is  weak  thro'  the  flesh."  It  is  but 
a  schoolmaster.  As  the  teacher  cannot  make 
scholars,  no  more  can  the  law  make  saints. 
The  humorist  noted  that  "Going  to  law  for 
salvation  was  like  going  to  hell  for  justice. ' ' 
And  perhaps  the  best  answer  to  all  theorists 
of  this  school  is  found  in  another  glance  at  a 
well-known  page  of  history.  It  is  an  estab- 
lished fact,  to  which  our  attention  is  called  by 
such  names  as  Hallam,  Hume,  Green, 
Froude,  and  Lecky,  that  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  the  most  corrupt 
period  in  the  whole  sweep  of  English  history. 

The  leaves  of  these  authors  are  black  and 
bloodstained  with  shocking  tales  of  crime  and 
cruelty.  Never  was  society  so  profligate, 
never  was  there  such  a  low  tone  to  public  and 
private  life,  never  were  the  clergy  so  openly 
immoral,  for  Puritanism  had  toppled  over  in 
a  crash  followed  by  a  reaction  that  left  the 
church  cold  and  lifeless.  To  so  low  a  plane 
indeed  had  everything  fallen  that  in  despair  a 
24 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

society  was  formed  clamoring  for  the  laws. 
It  was  entitled  the  "Society  for  the  Promo- 
tion of  Public  Morals."  Lecky  tells  us  that, 
"In  a  few  years  one  hundred  thousand  convic- 
tions were  obtained  in  London  and  Westmin- 
ster for  public  debauchery  and  profanity;  the 
openly  vicious  were  m.ade  to  feel  the  scourge 
of  the  law;  a  special  corps  of  detectives  with 
a  police  force  was  organized  to  stem  the  tide 
of  murder  and  license  that  reigned  throughout 
the  kingdom."  But  so  barren  of  any  whole- 
some results  were  the  efforts  made,  and  such 
was  the  disinterestedness  of  the  church,  that 
the  society  died  off  for  lack  of  funds,  and  on 
its  grave  arose  a  great  spiritual  awakening 
under  Wesley  and  Whitefield.  Sadly  indeed 
must  it  be  confessed  that  legislation  is  no 
remedy.  In  its  essence  legislation  is  destruct- 
ive. It  can  restrain  but  not  cure,  help  but 
not  heal.  This  is  a  blunder  the  Church  has 
been  making  all  adown  the  ages.  All  forms 
of  persecution  are  an  attempt  to  cure  the 
world  by  legislation.  This  was  the  mistake 
of  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Spanish 
Inquisition.  Under  Torquemada,  nine  thou- 
sand men  and  v^^omen  were  burned  at  the 
stake.     But  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit  cannot  be 

25 


Earthly  Discords. 

developed  by  any  forcing  process  any  more 
than  the  flowers  of  the  hillside  can  be  made 
to  respond  to  the  noise  of  the  cannon  or  the 
blare  of  the  battleship.  These  hinder  rather 
than  help.  When  the  air  gets  warm  and 
genial  then  nature  will  not  be  slow  to  deck 
herself  in  all  her  rich  and  varied  loveliness, 
and  this  comes  only  with  the  circling  summer. 
Just  so  the  winter  of  persecution  has  but 
served  to  delay  the  coming  of  that  good  time 
when  the  "lion  shall  lie  down  with  the  lamb, 
when  there  shall  be  nothing  to  hurt  or  to  de- 
stroy in  all  God's  holy  mountain." 


Perhaps  the  most  popular  preacher  of  the 
age  is  the  reformer;  provided,  of  course,  he 
comes  to  do  his  work  through  human  agency. 
Reformers  of  the  Luther  type,  the  Savonarola 
type,  are  not  so  welcome.  The  reformer 
sent  of  God  is  stoned  and  scourged,  but  sent 
of  man  he  is  banqueted  and  wreathed  and 
heaped  with  flatteries.  The  craze  of  the 
hour  is  social  philanthropy.  Even  foreign 
missions  are  most  acceptable  to  the  average 
Christian  when  it  can  be  shown  that  they  are 
working  along  the  lines  of  culture  and  the 
commercial  return.  Not  that  these  things 
26 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

should  discourage  us,  for  their  final  aim  is 
admirable.  There  can  be  Httle  doubt  that 
morality  would  save  the  world  if  only  it  could 
be  had;  so  each  age  asks  despairingly  the 
question,  "How  can  it  be  had?"  In  tropical 
countries  a  wood-worm,  called  the  termite, 
works  its  way  into  furniture  and  eats  up  the 
inside  tissues,  converting  it  into  a  shell  which 
collapses  to  the  touch.  In  the  Island  of  Cuba 
the  native  shows  a  tree  that  looks  fair  and 
beautiful  to  the  eye.  Giving  it  a  blow  with 
the  axe  it  topples  over,  filling  the  air  with  a 
fine,  white  powder,  the  secret  being  that  a 
tiny  insect  eats  its  way  into  the  fiber  and 
turns  the  beautiful  tree  into  a  mummy  of 
bandaged  dust.  The  trouble  with  all  the 
many  types  of  human  reform  is  that  they  take 
no  account  of  the  enemy  that  builds  his  nest 
deep  down  in  the  inward  parts.  They  are  the 
old  attempt  to  "improve  the  music  by  deco- 
rating the  pipes,  to  purify  the  water  by  white- 
washing the  pump. ' '  When  Coleridge  threw 
a  bit  of  thistle  down  into  the  air  he  cried, 
"The  tendency  of  this  is  toward  China,  but 
we  know  it  will  never  reach  there." 

And  the  tendency  of  many  an  amendment 
suggested  to-day  is  toward  goodness,  but  they 
27 


Earthly  Discords. 

lack  the  dynamic.  Surely  it  is  a  noble  thing 
to  polish  life's  externals,  to  uplift  and  gladden 
the  lives  of  the  poor,  to  cultivate  in  them  a 
sense  of  self-respect,  to  educate  their  families 
and  give  them  beautiful  homes,  with  art  and 
taste  expressing  itself  at  every  turn.  But  if 
the  cleavage  of  the  soul  from  God  is  left  un- 
closed, if  the  sin  of  yesterday  is  left  unpar- 
doned, if  the  heart  remains  uncleansed,  how 
unsatisfying  the  work!  how  the  real  trouble 
is  left  untouched! 

Dr.  Abbot  is  fond  of  saying  that  there  is 
a  wide  difference  between  a  green  apple  and 
the  apple  with  a  worm  in  it.  "The  one  needs 
sunshine,  the  other  calls  for  a  knife. ' '  Mor- 
tification asks  not  salve  but  a  surgeon. 
Decay  must  be  uprooted.  "If  thine  eye 
offend  thee  pluck  it  out;  thy  hand,  cut  it  off." 
"The  oil  comes  after  the  arrow,  the  bandage 
after  the  wound." 


Mr.  Sheldon  has  written  for  us  a  story 
which  he  very  fittingly  names  "The  Cruci- 
fixion of  Philip  Strong."  The  hero  of  the 
story  is  a  strong  man — strong  in  name  and 
nature — a  clergyman  who  starts  out  to  re- 
deem his  parish  and  who  of  course  is  cruci- 

28 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

fied.  He  takes  the  burden  of  its  sorrows 
upon  his  heart,  its  sins  upon  his  soul,  and 
through  very  weight  of  sympathy  the  life  is 
crushed  out.  But  this  way  lies  hope.  This 
must  ever  be  the  story  of  redemption.  This 
is  the  gospel  of  the  God-man.  "He  bare  our 
sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree."  Interest- 
ing that  the  word  bless  and  the  word  blood 
have  the  same  root.  Not  until  we  share  our 
very  life  can  we  be  a  blessing  to  our  brother. 
This  it  is  that  constitutes  the  attractive  power 
of  Calvary. 

If  Jesus  must  needs  suffer  can  we  hope  to 
be  immune?  Nay  indeed,  not  so!  The  rather 
are  we  "buried  with  him  by  baptism  into 
death;  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up  from 
the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so 
we  also  should  walk  in  newness  of  life. ' ' 
■^  In  Kaulbach's  famous  picture  of  the  refor- 
mation Luther  is  the  central  figure.  He  holds 
an  open  Bible  in  his  outstretched  hand,  while 
grouped  around  are  seen  the  scientists,  states- 
men, scholars,  and  thinkers  of  the  age.  The 
portrait  is  true  to  life.  To-day  the  standing 
of  a  people  in  the  column  of  culture  depends 
on  its  attitude  to  the  Book.  Where  this  Book 
has  gone  and  is  untrammeled,  there  the  light 
29 


Earthly  Discords. 

of  Civilization  shines,  there  education  is  at  its 
highest,  and  legislation  at  its  best.  The  Bible 
is  the  true  reformer.  -  Its  remedy  is  deep;  its 
appeal  to  the  heart;  its  ultimatum  "Ye  must 
be  born  again."  In  the  law  library  we  find 
crime  discussed,  in  the  treatise  on  morality  we 
learn  of  vice,  but  when  we  would  acquaint  our 
lips  with  the  word  '  'sin, ' '  then  we  must  needs 
return  to  the  Book.  Here  we  learn  the  tear- 
ful tragedy  that  sin's  home  is  in  the  heart; 
that  it  is  an  intruder,  a  usurper;  that  if  we 
would  have  the  enemy  cast  out  and  crushed, 
the  strong  man  must  be  bound  by  a  stronger, 
ejected,  and  forthwith  the  temple  cleansed. 

Some  years  ago  a  scientist  advanced  the 
theory  that  the  first  living  protoplasm  from 
which  have  evolved  all  forms  of  life  on  our 
earth  was  carried  hither  by  some  falling 
meteor  on  its  wild  uncertain  flight.  This 
may  be  reckless  science,  but  in  the  spiritual 
life  of  man  it  is  the  glad  evangel  of  our  holy 
faith.  From  without  and  above — not  from 
within  and  below — must  come  all  spiritual 
vitality  and  power.  The  gospel  is  not  a  de- 
velopment, not  a  resultant  of  human  research. 
As  yet  nothing  has  ever  been  found  in  con- 
temporaneous literature  to  correspond  to  the 

30 


Education,  Legislation,  Reformation. 

doctrine  of  the  new  birth.  An  outburst  was 
it  upon  the  world  from  without,  not  an  offshoot 
from  within.  *  In  Jesus  Christ  a  new  word  of 
truth  came  down  to  us  from  heaven.  Man 
did  not  create  it.  It  was  revelation,  not  evo- 
lution. "Jesus  Christ  is  the  branch  of 
prophecy  engrafted  on  the  old  stock  of  fallen 
humanity. ' ' 

And  so  we  reach  the  conclusion  of  our 
study.  Education  has  done  much  to  cheer 
the  fainting  pilgrim  on  the  march;  legislation 
has  leveled  the  hills  not  a  little  and  eased  the 
journey;  reformation  has  made  him  physically 
fitter  against  the  taxings  of  the  some  time 
steep  ascent.  Yet  show  I  unto  you  a  more 
excellent  way,  more  excellent  because  more 
radical  and  more  complete,  "the  way  taught 
not  by  learning  but  by  unction,  not  by  science 
but  by  conscience."  Not  education,  not 
legislation,  not  reformation,  but  regeneration 
through  the  blood;  not  the  college,  not  the 
congress,  not  the  club,  but  the  church,  which 
He  hath  purchased  by  His  own  passion,  is 
the  hope  of  society  and  the  race. 


31 


The  Discord  of  Sii 


CHAPTER    II. 

The  Discord  of  Sin. 

Sin  is  of  course  the  great  controlling  dis- 
cord of  life,  one  strife  but  many  sounds,  one 
variance  but  many  voices,  disturbmg  all  peace, 
destroying  all  music.  For  the  "whole  crea- 
tion groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain,"  and 
because  of  sin.  No  secret  place  has  yet  been 
found  where  sin  is  not.  The  poison  pervades 
all  hearts,  pollutes  all  fellowship.  Lingering 
long  in  life's  garden  one  notes  how  a  worm  is 
seen  in  every  apple,  a  blight  on  every  berry. 
"For  alas!  sin  hath  entered  into  the  world  and 
death  by  sin. " 


At  the  outset  it  may  be  well  to  get  a  clear 
and  searching  grasp  of  what  sin  really  is,  be- 
cause much  of  the  loose  and  ragged  thinking 
on  the  subject  to-day  is  due  to  vague  and  slip- 
shod definition.  We  hear  much,  for  instance, 
about  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Some  there  are 
who  claim  that  said  spirit  is  commercial,  its 
tone  metallic,  and  to  this  they  would  attribute 
all  our  troubles.     Others  hold  that  we  are 

35 


Earthly  Discords. 

living  in  a  transition  period,  that  is  in  the  act 
of  shifting  its  emphasis  from  eternity  back  to 
time,  and  this  they  would  push  forward  as  the 
source  of  all  our  social  and  spiritual  unrest. 
These  things  no  doubt  are  true,  but  there 
seems  a  deeper  truth  beneath.  We  are  living 
in  an  age  that  is  losing  its  sense  of  the  ex- 
ceeding sinfulness  of  sin,  an  age  that  argues 
for  toning  down  the  loud  and  glaring  colors 
in  which  our  fathers  pictured  it,  softening  its 
uglier  features,  and  making  attractive  the 
intruder  and  enemy  of  all  peace.  Sin,  alas, 
is  laughed  at. 

We  write  sweet  music  to  the  tragic  song — 
light,  flippant  airs.  This  is  the  pitiful  accom- 
paniment. Hardly  a  novel  in  which  it  is 
not  treated  as  a  joke,  a  witticism,  something 
ludicrous!  We  throw  a  glamour  of  loveliness 
around  it,  instead  of  regarding  it  in  its  true 
and  lurid  light  as  the  fen  which  is  the  foun- 
tain of  all  tears,  the  well-spring  of  all  woe, 
the  root  of  all  bitterness  and  sorrow. 


What,  then,  is  sin?  What  saith  the  voice 
of  Revelation?  In  allegory  the  inspired 
writer  causeth  it  to  pass  before  our  eye  in  the 
similitude  of  a  serpent,  sly,   insidious,  veno- 

36 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

mous,  like  the  fabled  monster  of  Greek 
mythology — one  life  but  hydra-headed.  The 
Apostle  John  in  his  first  epistle  writes,  "Who- 
soever committeth  sin  transgresseth  also  the 
law,  for  sin  is  the  transgression  of  the  law"; 
or,  as  the  Revised  Version  more  correctly 
translates,  "for  sin  is  lawlessness."  Sin  is 
lawlessness.  Let  the  word  be  written  in  let- 
ters of  fire,  lawlessness — missing  the  mark, 
failing  to  reach  the  ideal  of  God's  perfect 
righteousness.  Whether  such  failure  be  in- 
tentional or  no  does  not  matter;  this  does  not 
enter  into  the  equation.  No  exceptions  are 
noted.  Every  time  we  fail  to  fulfil  the  divine 
ideal  set  forth  for  us,  it  is  sin.  What  a 
searching,  sweeping,  startling  thought  is  this! 
How  can  we  make  light  of  it!  How  can  any 
redeemed  child  claim  to  live  a  perfect  life! 
How  can  we  hope  for  acceptance  without  His 
atoning  blood  and  pardoning  grace  and  daily 
cleansing!  Surely  our  very  best  falls  short  of 
the  mark,  our  very  perfection  must  be  failure! 
Sin,  then,  be  it  established  firmly,  is  not  igno- 
rance; not  even  an  act;  it  is  a  condition — a 
condition  of  lawlessness — a  state  of  insurrec- 
tion against  the  government  of  the  Most  High, 
an  attitude  of  disobedience  to  His  will.     The 

37 


1   ;-^,  •;••.,  ^>   i   yl 


Earthly  Discords. 

law  says  something  is  permissible  and  proper 
if  gained  in  a  certain  way.  That  way  is  laid 
down  for  us  in  Revelation  and  in  the  nature 
of  man.  But  it  is  so  much  easier  to  get  it  in 
another  way.  Here  is  the  genesis  of  all  sin, 
wishing  to  be  one's  own  master.  Desire 
gratified  by  the  transgression  of — the  step- 
ping across — the  King's  law  and  in  a  path 
forbidden,  this  is  sin.  Striving  to  secure 
what  may  be  a  perfectly  lawful  prize  but 
striving  to  secure  it  in  an  unlawful  way;  i.  e., 
in  a  way  different  from  the  way  marked  out 
at  the  Court  of  Heaven;  trying  to  secure  it 
in  our  way,  the  way  that  suits  our  will  the  best; 
this  is  the  lawlessness  of  the  human  heart; 
this  is  sin  in  its  wide  generic  sense.  "For 
we  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way,  and 
the  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity" — 
the  perverseness  literally — "of  us  all." 

The  way  of  the  transgressor  is  rough  and 
hard  and  toilsome,  and  it  may  give  a  clearer 
outlook  if  from  some  upper  window  we  view 
the  journey  in  its  three  successive  stages:  sin 
is  selfishness;  sin  is  solitude;  sin  is  suicide. 
One  road  but  three  sections.  Starting  out  as 
selfishness,  it  runs  into  solitude  and  terminates 
in  suicide. 

38 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

I.  Sin  is  selfishness.  The  Westminster 
divines  defined  sin  as  ' '  any  want  of  conform- 
ity unto  or  transgression  of  the  law  of  God"; 
and  as  the  law  of  God  is  love,  sin  in  its  last 
analysis  would  be  any  infraction  of  the  law  of 
love.  The  drunkard  who  robs  wife  and  child 
of  life's  first  needs  for  a  base  gratification  and 
momentary,  is  essentially  a  selfish  man.  The 
thief  who  reaches  out  and  grasps  a  brother's 
purse  confesses  himself  thereby  a  base,  un- 
generous creature.  The  man  who  works  the 
Sabbath  and  steals  from  God  is  surely  not 
less  free  from  blame.  The  libertine  who 
leads  aside  the  daughter  of  innocence  for  a 
breath's  brutal  delight  is  of  all  things  selfish. 
The  money  grubber  who  crushes  his  fellow- 
man;  the  proud  lord  who  spurns  him;  the 
society  lady  of  a  false  and  superficial  culture 
who  slights  her  sister  on  the  street;  the 
woman  who  lives  for  pleasure;  and  the  man 
whose  God  is  gold — all  are  self-centered  crea- 
tures; all  shut  their  eyes  to  the  interest  and 
welfare  of  their  neighbor  as  announced  in  the 
Good  Samaritan  story.  Each  transgression 
of  the  Commandments  is  at  heart  self-seeking. 
Whether  the  breach  be  a  violation  of  the  first 
law  of  worship,  or  the  last  law  of  covetous- 

39       *- 


Earthly  Discords. 

ness,  or  the  Christ-supplement  of  love  and 
kindness,  self  is  the  spur  at  the  start,  self  is 
the  root-trouble. 


2.  And  selfishness  results  in  solitude.  Of 
necessity  the  selfish  life  becomes  a  lonely  life, 
because  no  happy  companionship  can  be  with- 
out a  kindly  regard  for  others. 

"No  one  Hveth  unto  himself  and  no  one 
dieth  unto  himself. ' '  None  standeth  separate 
and  apart.  Neither  in  life  nor  in  death  are 
we  alone.  We  all  lean  largely,  heavily,  on  our 
fellows.  He  who  lives  for  others  will  have 
friends,  but  he  who  lives  for  himself  must  not 
complain  when  he  finds  the  world  forsaking 
him.  If  a  home  would  be  truly  happy,  hus- 
band and  wife  must  needs  live  for  each  other. 
For  the  moment  each  begins  to  live  for  self, 
that  moment  there  arises  misunderstanding, 
division,  separation,  discord.  And  so  the 
cleavage  widens  till  each  eventually  lives  alone, 
till  no  longer  is  there  any  community  of  inter- 
est or  sympathy  of  spirit,  but  estrangement 
rather  and  loss  of  felicity  and  virtue,  for  "he 
that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  i^  while  he  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  and  the  gospel's 
the  same  shall  find  it." 
•     40 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

Solitude,  furtnermore,  is  swift  punishment 
to  the  soul's  peace.  When  in  the  Reign  of 
Terror  prisoners  were  cast  into  dungeons, 
many  went  mad  through  torture  from  the 
aloneness.  Not  infrequently  would  they 
scream  at  the  bars  to  passers  by.  For  the 
instinct  of  humanity  craves  comradeship. 
The  very  cattle  go  in  herds,  the  fishes  in 
shoals,  the  bees  in  swarms,  the  quails  in 
coveys.  Nothing  is  more  unnatural  than  a 
hermit.  "Hard  to  spin  our  own  top,  to  light 
our  own  lethargy,"  was  a  fond  saying  of 
Emerson.  "A  scholar  is  a  candle  which 
humanity  kindles. ' ' 

We  read  of  Judas  that  after  the  supper 
was  ended  and  the  betrayal  foretold  "he 
went  immediately  out  and  it  was  nighx.." 
He  went  out.  Out,  note!  He  went  out  into 
exile,  out  into  solitariness,  out  to  suffer  the 
evil  companionship  of  his  own  heart,  and  the 
evangelist  adds,  with  a  touch  of  insight,  "it 
was  night."  Alas,  'tis  always  night  when 
we  go  out  from  friends  and  fellowship,  the 
soul's  eclipse  when  it  turns  deaf  ears  to  the 
overtures  of  * '  Love  that  will  not  let  us  go, ' ' 
blackest  midnight  when  our  Father  veils  his 
face: 

41 


Earthly  Discords. 

"Our  midnight  is  thy  smile  withdrawn, 
Our  noontide  is  thy  gracious  dawn; 
Star  of  our  hope,  thy  softened  light 
Cheers  the  long  watches  of  the  night." 

Christ  Jesus  is  the  Sun  of  Righteousness, 
the  Light  of  the  World.  When  his  face  is 
hidden,  how  hopeless  and  dark  the  night! 
For  just  as  surely  as  "earthquakes  develop 
cowards  and  war  makes  heroes,"  so  surely 
does  selfishness  beget  solitude  and  shadow. 

Professor  Selby,  in  the  Journal  of  Forestry, 
tells  us  that  when  the  Lebanon  cedar  gets  a 
start  in  the  young  forest  it  crowds  out  all 
other  types  of  sylvan  life.  No  spruce  or  fir 
or  hemlock  can  be  found;  no  fern  or  flower 
or  foliage  can  find  welcome;  no  shrub  or  stock 
or  herb  or  creeper;  no  maple  or  chestnut 
spread  their  tints  to  the  autumn  tourist  or  drop 
their  nuts  for  the  squirrel  and  the  chickaree. 
Cedar  has  the  sole  monopoly.  The  bark  is 
the  bark  of  the  cedar,  the  resin  is  the  resin  of 
the  cedar,  the  odor  is  the  odor  of  the  cedar. 
All  is  loneliness  but  for  the  cedar.  How 
selfish  is  our  Damascus  friend!  Just  so 
does  sin  crowd  out  all  loveliness  from  the  soul, 
and  turn  life's  garden  into  a  waste,  into  a 
sameness,   where   self    becomes  the  sole  in- 

42 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

habitant,    the    one    tenant    of    the    spiritual 
temple. 

Perhaps  the  saddest  words  that  fell  from 
the  Master's  lips  are  in  his  portrayal  of  the 
final  reckoning:  "Depart  from  me."  The 
words  describe  departure  from  truth,  depart- 
ure from  home,  from  father  and  mother  and 
family  and  friend,  departure  from  the  soul's 
first  love,  departure  into  the  far  country, 
departure  into  the  blackness  of  darkness  for- 
ever. 


3.  And  the  end  of  the  road  is  suicide,  self- 
destruction,  for  "The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 
Sin  is  a  boomerang;  it  recoils.  Every  time 
we  sin  we  injure  others,  but  ourselves  we 
injure  the  most.  Some  one  has  noted  that  a 
handsome  face  is  never  seen  in  jail,  thus 
denoting  that  indulgence  puts  a  twist  in  the 
eye  and  a  cloud  on  the  brow  and  a  stumble  in 
the  step  and  a  coarseness  into  the  facial  tissue, 
and  forever  mars  the  beauty  of  the  body. 
Selfishness  somehow  steals  a  luster  from  the 
life,  and  one  feels  that  a  glory  hath  passed 
away.  All  sin  degrades  the  body,  unnerves 
the  mind,  indurates  the  conscience,  weakens 
the  will,  clouds  the  reason,  dulls  the  edge  of 

43 


Earthly  Discords. 

moral  discernment,  and  eventually  slays  the 
soul,  for  be  it  repeated  over  and  over,  "The 
wages  of  sin  is  death. ' '  Ever  careful  are  we 
to  caution  our  youth  on  the  penalties  of  sin, 
but  objectively,  socially,  financially.  We 
speak  about  the  poor-house,  the  hospital,  the 
asylum,  the  prison,  the  cell,  the  collar,  the 
shackle.  The  drunkard  we  track  to  his  den 
of  poverty  where  we  pause  and  listen  to  the 
cries  of  his  hungry  children;  we  point  out 
his  neglected  grave;  we  say,  "Mark,  my 
child,  this  spot,  for  though  poets  have  sung 
many  a  sweet  strain  over  the  shroud  of  the 
soldier,  no  poet  has  ever  had  the  courage  to 
lay  a  laurel  here, ' '  The  footstep  of  the  fugi- 
tive we  follow  as  it  bends  over  some  "Bridge 
of  Sighs"  with  its  sorrowful  reminder,  "The 
way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard. ' '  The  course 
of  the  sensualist  we  watch  as  it  presses  hard 
upon  the  pest-house.  The  highway  of  the 
assassin  leads  us  to  the  prison  bars  or  the 
morgue.  Till  we  exclaim  at  last, ' '  How  expen- 
sive must  all  wrong-doing  be!  Surely  it  must 
be  that  sobriety  alone  is  profitable,  that  only 
purity  pays!"  But  these  things  are  trivial 
compared  with  the  real  mischief.  This  is 
only  damaging  the  frame  of  the  picture;  this 

44 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

only  concerns  the  spoiling  of  the  cabinet;  it 
does  not  touch  the  jewelry  within.  The  real 
havoc  is  the  rebound.  Keep  your  eye  shut 
long  enough  and  blindness  will  follow.  Not 
less  easily  darkened,  surely,  is  spiritual  vision. 
The  kick  of  the  rifle  is  worse  than  its  forward 
impulse.  "He  that  sinneth  against  me, ' '  saith 
scripture,  "wrongeth  his  own  soul."  The 
reaction  of  sin  upon  the  sinner  is  the  real 
ravage.  The  great  and  fearful  loss  is  the  loss 
sustained  by  the  immortal  nature.  Sin  sears 
the  sensitiveness  of  conscience,  hardens  the 
heart's  finest  emotions  and  instincts,  stains 
the  delicate  beauty  of  the  affections,  puts  us 
out  of  touch  with  spiritual  impressions,  and 
steals  from  life  its  glory,  its  music,  its  joy. 


In  our  childhood  we  were  thrilled  with  the 
old  tale  of  Jack  the  Giant  Killer.  With  eyes 
wide  open  we  followed  him  up  his  long  ladder 
to  the  moon  and  laughed  and  cried  and  paled 
and  trembled,  for  there  he  met  a  giant  of 
titanic  build,  whose  custom  was  to  gobble  up 
all  foreign  intruders.  When  the  giant  under- 
took to  seize  Jack,  the  wily  lad  laid  a  trap  by 
which  the  giant  tumbled  headlong  earthwards 
and  was   dashed   into  divers   pieces.     Thus 

45 


Earthly  Discords. 

does  the  old  amusing  legend  teach  a  great 
moral  truth,  that  all  sin  is  retroactive  and 
strikes  home. 

Homer  gives  his  enchantress  the  power  to 
change  men  into  swine,  but  in  order  to  accom- 
plish the  metamorphosis  men  must  first  make 
swine  of  themselves  by  drunkenness  and  in- 
dulgence. The  author  of  the  great  immortal 
allegory  tells  us  how  once  in  a  dream  he 
thought  himself  a  hare  with  the  hounds  in  hot 
pursuit.  So  real  was  the  chase  that  he  could 
smell  the  bark  of  the  hemlock  and  feel  the 
sting  of  the  briar  and  the  brushwood.  Closer 
and  closer  they  drew  till  their  hot  breath 
touched  him.  And  when  he  awoke  on  the 
summit  of  a  rocky  cliff,  far,  far  from  the 
green  wheat  fields,  it  was  to  find  that  the 
hounds  were  his  sins  and  he  a  flying  soul. 
How  true  the  dream  to  life!  It  is  the  fashion 
of  sin  to  run  its  victim  to  earth  on  the  top  of 
some  lonely  solitude  or  in  the  depths  of  some 
dark  defile  where  help  is  helpless  to  extend  its 
human  reach.  For  all  sin  travels  to  a  city 
called  Sorrow.  Wind  and  tide,  sail  and  cur- 
rent, but  hurry  the  foolish  youth  to  his  haven 
of  tears.  Agrippina  puts  her  husband  to 
death  to  enthrone  her  son  Nero,  and  what 
46 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

does  Nero  do  to  hold  his  throne  but  put 
Agrippina  to  death.  This  is  sin's  never-fail- 
ing programme.  Benaiah  slays  the  Egyptian 
with  his  own  spear.  Each  thief  steals  from 
himself.  Each  murderer  takes  his  own  life. 
*  *  Put  a  fetter  on  the  foot  of  a  slave, ' '  says 
Emerson,  "and  the  other  end  fastens  around 
your  own. ' ' 

The  historian  tells  us  that  "when  Spain 
kindled  the  fires  of  the  auto  de  fe  and 
stretched  victims  on  the  rack,  those  fires 
sucked  up  the  blood  of  her  own  heart,  and 
through  the  mutilating  and  mangling  of  other 
limbs  she  herself  has  never  since  walked 
erect. ' '  For  the  word  of  the  Lord  abideth 
forever,  and  this  is  the  word  that  is  preached 
unto  us,  that  self-destruction  is  sin's  shadow, 
sin's  rebound. 

Some  years  ago  there  was  a  little  Sunday 
school  book  published,  and  the  pith  of  the 
story  was  as  follows:  A  father  comes  home 
tired  and  careworn  in  the  evening  from  his 
day's  work.  He  takes  his  little  boy,  kisses 
him,  plants  him  on  his  knee,  and  begins  tell- 
ing him  a  story.  The  story  is  made  up  as 
the  father  goes  along,  and  the  little  fellow, 
getting  impatient  with  its  length,  looks  up  into 

47 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  father's  face  and  says,  "Papa,  how  did  it 
all  turn  out  in  the  end?"  The  father  pays  no 
attention,  but  goes  on  absorbed  even  more 
than  ever  in  the  tale  he  is  concocting.  At 
last  the  little  fellow  gets  so  worked  up  that  he 
cannot  endure  it  any  longer,  and  so  exclaims, 
"Papa,  I  can't  wait!  Do  tell  me  how  did  it  all 
turn  out  in  the  end?"  Let  us  then  see  how 
it  all  turns  out  in  the  end.  There  are  two 
immortal  creations  in  literature  that  show  sin 
and  its  workings  from  the  angle  we  are  stand- 
ing. The  one  portrays  the  selfishness  and 
consequent  solitariness  of  sin;  the  other  tracks 
the  victim  to  his  natural  end  and  sees  the  play 
out.  Dickens's  story  of  Scrooge  is  a  Christ- 
mas story.  Scrooge  is  the  arch-miser  of  litera- 
ture, the  Shylock  of  romance — hard  as  steel, 
keen  as  a  surgeon's  blade,  disagreeable  in 
every  way  to  run  up  against  as  a  cactus  plant. 
The  grasping  greed  of  the  man  wrinkled  his 
face,  bent  his  form,  pointed  his  nose,  reddened 
his  eye,  lent  a  squeak  to  his  voice,  and  a  line 
or  two  to  his  lean,  lanky  fingers.  No  biting 
blast  bitterer  than  he,  no  frost  more  cruel  or 
inconsiderate!  Even  the  dogs  appeared  to 
know  him,  and  would  cross  the  street  to  avoid 
the  glance  of  his  ugly  eye  or  the  crack  of  his 
48 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

hard,  knotty  cane.  The  story  commences  on 
a  clear,  cold  Christmas  eve,  and  the  author 
takes  us  to  a  cheerless,  dingy  office,  where 
Scrooge  and  his  clerk  sit  shivering  counting 
shekels.  "Merry  Christmas,  Uncle!"  cried 
a  cheerful  voice  at  the  door.  "Bah!"  said 
Scrooge,  "Humbug  with  your  Merry  Christ- 
mas! What's  Christmas  but  a  time  for  paying 
bills  without  money,  a  time  to  find  yourself 
a  year  older,  not  an  hour  richer?  If  I  could 
work  my  will  every  idiot  who  goes  about  with 
Merry  Christmas  on  his  tongue  should  be 
boiled  with  his  own  pudding  and  buried  with 
a  stake  of  holly  through  his  heart.  To  bed- 
lam with  Christmas  man,  go  home. ' ' 

In  order  to  make  vivid  to  us  the  loneliness 
of  the  life  the  miser  lived,  the  author  next 
takes  us  to  his  humble  home,  which  was  a 
room  in  a  back  alley  and  up  a  flight  of  stairs 
over  a  wine-merchant's  cellar.  The  hall  was 
dark,  for  Scrooge  loved  darkness,  being 
cheap,  so  up  he  stumbles  with  a  dimly  lighted 
candle  in  hand,  double  bolts  his  door,  and  sits 
down  before  the  grate  to  prepare  his  evening 
gruel.  Suddenly  the  ghost  of  his  old  partner 
— seven  years  dead — appears  before  him, 
Jacob    Marley;     same    face,    the    very    same 

49 


Earthly  Discords. 

usual  waistcoat  tights  and  boots.  The  chain 
he  drew  was  clasped  about  his  waist  and 
dangled  behind  him  like  a  tail.  It  was  made 
of  cash  boxes,  keys,  padlocks,  ledgers,  deeds, 
and  ponderous  pursers  wrought  in  steel. 

"You  are  fettered,"  ventured  Scrooge, 
trembling  all  over. 

"I  wear  the  chain  I  forged  in  life,"  re- 
plied the  ghost.  ' '  I  made  it  link  by  link,  and 
yard  by  yard.  Is  its  pattern  strange  to  you?" 
Scrooge  trembled  to  his  toes. 

"Perhaps  you  do  not  know,"  continued 
the  ghost,  "that  you  carry  a  coil  yourself.  It 
was  full  as  heavy  as  this  seven  Christmas  eves 
ago.  You  have  labored  on  it  since.  Its 
links  are  large  and  lusty  to-day. ' ' 

Dickens  never  tires  telling  us  that  sin  is 
selfishness,  and  the  solitude  of  Ebenezer 
Scrooge  is  a  perpetual  warning  from  the 
leaves  of  fiction.  The  awful  loneliness  of  the 
man  sends  a  shudder  through  the  reader's 
frame.  How  awfully  aloof  his  life!  How 
hated  by  all!  How  the  little  children  would 
run  away  from  him!  How  even  the  horses 
would  turn  their  heads  when  he  passed  by! 
True,  his  course  is  interrupted,  but  this  great 
interpreter  of  the  human  heart  takes  particular 

50 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

pains  to  show  us  what  the  end  would  be  un- 
less the  life  is  changed;  and  that  scene  where 
the  Spirit  of  the  Future  takes  the  miser  to  his 
death-bed  and  shows  him  himself  dying,  with 
not  a  living  creature  in  the  empty  house  but  a 
cat,  then  to  the  churchyard  where  was  a 
lonely,  broken  down,  neglected  tombstone, 
overrun  by  weeds  and  off  in  a  corner  by  itself 
(for  even  the  tombstone  was  apart),  and  bear- 
ingthe  single  inscription, ' '  Ebenezer  Scrooge, ' ' 
is  one  of  the  most  thrilling  pages  in  all  litera- 
ture. The  chapter  might  well  be  called 
"The  dying  body  of  a  dead  soul." 


But  possibly  no  one  tale  in  the  republic  of 
letters  brings  out  the  truth  of  our  study  better 
than  the  strange  history  of  Eugene  Aram. 
Lord  Lytton  leads  us  back  to  the  modest 
country  home  of  a  great  scholar.  He  gives 
us  a  peep  into  his  life,  showing  us  a  calm, 
dignified,  thoughtful  man,  in  delicate  health 
apparently,  and  as  before,  coveting  solitude. 
None  of  the  neighbors  had  more  than  a 
speaking  acquaintance  with  him,  for  he  lived 
alone.  "What  the  shell  is  to  the  turtle  that 
his  solitude  had  become  to  him — his  protec- 
tion, aye  his  life."     He  had  the  scholar-habit 

51 


Earthly  Discords. 

of  talking  to  himself  in  an  absent-minded  way, 
for  he  clung  to  reverie  and  musing,  but  in 
conversation  he  was  charmingly  eloquent. 
Though  never  mingling  with  his  country 
yeomen,  still  it  was  noted  by  them  that,  un- 
like Scrooge,  he  was  kind  toward  the  poor, 
tender  toward  the  suffering,  that  not  a  dumb 
animal  but  appealed  to  him.  When  walking 
in  the  garden  he  would  stoop  to  remove  a 
snail  or  worm  from  his  footpath  rather  than 
hurt  the  humblest  life.  For  years  he  lived  in 
his  modest  cottage  on  the  top  of  a  little  knoll 
surrounded  by  tall  junipers,  seeing  no  one, 
rarely  venturing  out,  reveling  in  his  books; 
the  passion  of  his  life  was  to  know,  to 
understand.  He  lived  to  learn;  he  was  an 
"arch-miser  in  the  wealth  of  letters."  Only 
thirty-five  years  of  age,  yet  he  was  already  a 
profound  mathematician,  an  elaborate  anti- 
quarian, an  abstruse  philologist.  From  al- 
most every  university  in  Europe  there  came 
to  his  humble  home  letters  of  introduction 
from  famous  men,  and  few  foreign  educators 
ever  visited  this  part  of  the  country  without 
seeking  an  interview  with  this  world-renowned 
doctor  of  the  sciences  and  the  schools. 

Then  chances  the  strange  falling  in  love  of 

52 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

our  hermit-sage  with  MadeHne  Lester,  the 
daughter  of  the  country  squire.  A  charming 
child  of  but  eighteen  was  she,  surpassingly 
beautiful,  and  with  a  like  love  for  study.  For 
full  two  years  he  had  lived  apart  in  his  quiet 
retreat  till  the  spell  of  Madeline  drew  him 
out.  No  one  knew  his  ancestry;  no  one 
knew  his  history.  Unsocial  the  neighbors 
called  him,  yet  withal  they  learned  to  love 
him,  for  that  pale  melancholy  eye  appealed  to 
them,  as  the  face  of  some  lonely  pleading 
stranger-child  might  touch  the  heart  of  some 
fond  mother  on  the  busy  boulevard.  A  few 
there  were,  of  course,  who  doubted.  "Free 
to  confess,"  said  the  Squire's  butler,  "that  I 
don't  quite  like  this  learned  man;  somethin' 
queer  'bout  him;  can't  see  'zactly  ter  the 
bottom;  don't  'pear  quite  so  meek  and  lamb- 
like as  he  seems.  You  know.  Squire,  onced 
I  saw  a  calm,  dead  pool,  peered  down  into  it, 
by  little  and  little  my  eye  got  sorter  used,  saw 
somethin'  dark  at  the  bottom,  stared  and 
stared  and  stared — by  Jupiter!  great  big 
alligator!     Never  liked  quiet  pools  since." 

But  that  was  only  the  feeling  of  the  few. 
The  greater  number  turned  to  him  in  confi- 
dence and  something  kin  to  pride.     For  did 

53 


Earthly  Discords. 

he  not  lend  dignity  to  the  parish?  The  name 
forsooth  became  a  thing  to  conjure  with. 
Travelers  were  always  driven  to  see  the  home 
of  Eugene  Aram.  When  some  ambitious 
youth  journeyed  afar  to  the  halls  of  learning 
and  heard  the  familiar  name  quoted  there,  it 
added  a  reverence  and  respect  which  soon 
leaked  out  in  common  gossip  among  the  lowly 
toilers  of  the  region  round.  Here  he  was 
called  "the  great  scholar."  The  humble 
laborers  of  saw,  anvil,  and  furrow  touched 
their  hats  in  reverence  on  meeting  him.  It 
was  noted,  indeed,  as  a  thing  worth  repeating 
when  some  little  bright-eyed  lassie  returned 
from  school,  and  told  her  mother  that  she  saw 
"the  great  scholar"  trudging  down  the  lane, 
and  that  he  smiled  at  her. 

So  the  months  of  courtship  passed,  for 
both  the  lovers  months  of  tense  and  feverish 
delight.  And  now  it  was  the  morning  of  the 
bridal  day — a  beautiful,  clear  morn  in  the  last 
week  of  October.  Alone  in  his  favorite  study- 
cloister,  with  his  books  around  him,  the  scholar- 
lover  sat  and  looked  out  at  the  landscape  that 
lay  below.  Not  a  leaf  stirred  in  the  autumn 
foliage.  Would  that  my  poor  mother  were 
here,  he  thought  to  himself,  to  see  her  boy 

54 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

count  the  stars  of  destiny's  joy.  "I  am,  I 
will,  I  shall  be  happy  now.  Ah  memory, 
memory,  I  defy  thee."  These  words  were 
uttered  in  a  deep,  tense  tone,  and  for  several 
minutes  the  sole  thought  of  the  soliloquist  was 
love.  Glancing  at  the  window  he  saw  a  little 
group  of  men  hurrying  up  the  lane.  Aram 
sprang,  pale,  breathless,  lips  apart,  for  the 
day  had  lent  special  tautness  to  his  nerves. 
Below,  a  hand  was  heard  banging  at  the  door, 
and  then  a  voice,  "My  hand  shall  seize  the 
murderer!"  He  shot  a  lightning  glance 
around  the  room,  his  brain  reeled,  his  breath 
gasped,  a  mortal  sickness  passed  over  his 
heart,  then  drawing  up  to  his  full  height,  he 
whispered,  "Madeline,  dear,  it's  all  over." 

'Twere  a  long  and  touching  tale  to  tell — 
this  marring  of  the  marriage  day — of  how 
bound  by  the  links  of  the  law  the  officers  led 
the  crushed  scholar,  not  to  love's  altar,  but  in 
lieu  thereof  to  the  prison  bars;  of  Madeline's 
patience  and  unswerving  faithfulness  during 
all  these  months  of  durance;  of  how  she  jour- 
neyed daily  to  his  cell  and  comforted  him  with 
every  expression  of  her  love  and  confidence; 
and  then  the  last  day  of  the  trial,  the  final  act 
in  the  tragedy.     It  was  the  third  of  August. 

55 


Earthly  Discords. 

Almost  a  year  had  passed — a  year  so  sad,  so 
slow.  Like  her  expected  bridal  day  the  morn 
dawned  bright  and  clear.  Madeline  rose 
early.  "See,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  am  going 
to  wear  the  dress  I  was  to  have  been  married 
in."  Her  love  and  loyalty  during  all  these 
months  of  strain  had  never  wavered.  She 
said,  "Though  all  the  world  forsake  him,  yet 
will  not  I."  But  her  face  was  pale,  her  form 
shrunken,  and  her  bridal  gown  hung  loosely 
from  her  bent  form. 

And  'twere  a  tale  more  terrible  even  to 
tell  of  his  conviction,  of  Madeline's  falling  in 
a  faint  from  which  she  never  rose,  of  the 
scholar's  confession  of  complicity  in  murder, 
of  his  taking  his  own  life  in  the  cell  on  the 
morning  of  the  day  on  which  he  was  to  have 
been  executed.  All  this  were  surely  thrilling 
narrative.  But  with  details  we  are  not  much 
concerned.  What  we  wish  to  note  is  "one 
black  deed  at  war  with  a  whole  life. "  "  That 
such  a  crime  should  be  so  separate  from  the 
rest  of  life's  career,  that  it  should  never  have 
steeled  or  roughened  his  nature,  that  a  char- 
acter capable  of  a  deed  so  black  as  murder 
should  still  be  tender  and  thoughtful  and 
unselfish — all  this  presents  a  startling  para- 

56 


The  Discord  of  Sin. 

dox  in  human  conduct,  strange  and  puzzHng.  '^ 
And  the  lesson  specially  worth  noting  is  the 
isolation  wrought.  Sin  insulates  its  victim 
and  sets  apart,  cuts  off  all  communion,  severs 
all  sympathy,  drives  into  pitiful  and  painful 
privacy.  Even  from  the  world  there  is  es- 
trangement. All  good  fellowship  is  but  out- 
ward and  seeming.  Sin  means  friendlessness, 
forlornness,  ostracism,  banishment — banish- 
ment from  God  and  fellow-man,  aye,  and  from 
self.  For  even  with  one's  own  heart  is  there 
lack  of  communion,  since  the  heart  distrusteth 
itself  and  knoweth  its  own  bitterness. 

Oh,  ye  who  know  little  as  yet  of  the  wages 
of  Satan  and  his  enslaving  service!  You 
whose  feet  have  never  yet  been  cut  with  the 
thorns  or  bruised  with  the  brambles  of  sin's 
rough  march!  Would  you  be  proof  against 
the  flints  and  briars  of  life's  perilous  pilgrim- 
age.-' Put  on  the  armor  of  God.  "Stand 
having  thy  loins  girt  about  with  truth  and 
having  on  the  breast-plate  of  righteousness, 
and  thy  feet  shod  with  the  preparation  of  the 
gospel  of  peace. ' '  Take  Jesus  Christ  for  thy 
leader.  Clad  in  his  righteousness  alone  are 
you  secure.  Anywhere  with  him  you  may 
safely  go.     Yea,  though  thou  walkest  through 

57 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  valley  he  will  go  with  thee.  With  his 
presence  you  need  never  know  solitude,  for 
"Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  age. ' '  Living  with  him  you  will  never 
know  selfishness,  for  "  I  am  among  you  as  he 
that  serveth. ' '  And  knowing  him  you  will 
never  know  death,  for  "I  am  come  that  you 
might  have  life  and  that  you  might  have  it 
more  abundantly." 


58 


The  Sad  Note  of   UnbelieFc 


CHAPTER    III. 
The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

The  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  in  a  word  of 
warning  to  the  Corinthian  Church,  writes: 
' '  For  we  can  do  nothing  against  the  truth  but 
for  the  truth";  and  truly  many  a  sad  page  of 
history  would  have  been  left  unwritten  had 
his  warning  been  regarded.  How  slowly  the 
mind  of  man  learns  that  the  most  obstinate 
rejection  of  a  truth  were  powerless  to  turn 
said  truth  into  a  falsehood!  The  English 
queen  came  to  the  mirror  when  all  her  beauty 
was  gone;  seeing  the  gray  hairs  and  the 
wrinkles,  the  story  goes  on  to  add  that  she 
smashed  it  into  atoms.  And  full  oft,  alas, 
that  foolish  scene  has  been  re-enacted  since 
Elizabeth  lost  her  temper.  Truth  has  had 
her  warfare  and  her  martyrs.  Stoned  have 
her  preachers  been,  aye  scourged,  and  beaten 
with  rods — all  the  way  from  the  little  Jew  of 
Tarsus  down  to  the  time  of  our  own  big  Bos- 
ton Abolitionist.  Her  discoveries  have  been 
hailed  with  hatred.  "History,"  says  John 
Stuart  Mill,  "fairly  teems  with  instances  of 
6i 


Earthly  Discords. 

truth  put  down  by  persecution."  Hegel 
declares  that  the  great  fact  of  history  has  been 
the  struggle  for  truth.  "When  I  am  dead," 
said  one  of  our  greatest  poets,  "lay  a  sword 
upon  my  coffin,  for  I  was  a  private  in  the  war 
for  the  liberation  of  humanity. ' ' 

It  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  hard  les- 
sons for  the  world  to  learn  that  burying  the 
head  in  the  sand,  ostrich-like,  avails  not  to 
avert  the  danger;  that  smashing  the  mirror 
will  not  make  one  young;  that  throwing  out 
the  thermometer  will  not  turn  January's  snow- 
drifts into  July's  waving  barley;  that  putting 
green  goggles  on  the  oxen  will  not  convert 
dry  waste  desert  land  into  rich,  roral  pasture; 
that  standing  on  the  seashore  with  pitchfork 
in  hand  tempting  to  keep  the  tides  at  bay  is 
vain  and  idle  venture;  that  every  shift  for 
fighting  facts  is  baby  business,  and  does  not 
pay.  Let  us  then  hasten  to  note  some  of  the 
truths  against  which  the  intellect  of  humanity 
has  been  in  blind  and  impotent  revolt. 


I.    The  Scientific  Government  of  God. 

Instance  the  story  of  Galileo  when  he  an- 
nounced his  Copemican  theory.  In  1616  he 
was  summoned  to  Rome,  where  his  doctrines 
62 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

were  condemned  by  the  pope.  In  1633  the 
aged  scholar  was  dragged  before  a  church 
tribunal  and  compelled  on  bended  knee  to 
abjure  and  hate  the  heresy.  After  death  his 
remains  were  refused  admittance  to  the  family 
tomb,  and  a  monument  to  his  memory  for- 
bidden. Well-known,  uncontested  facts, 
these! 

Instance,  further,  the  story  of  Roger 
Bacon!  What  did  this  great  philosopher  do 
for  the  world?  Much  every  way.  Chiefly  a 
long  line  of  discoveries  in  mechanics  and 
physics,  besides  valuable  treatises  in  logic, 
mathematics,  and  moral  philosophy.  He  had 
much  to  do  with  the  telescope,  with  gun-pow- 
der, with  spectacles,  much  with  burning  glass. 
Time  fails,  indeed,  to  itemize  his  long  list  of 
blessings  to  our  human  comfort.  This  it  is 
that  Roger  Bacon  did  for  the  world.  And  what 
in  return  did  the  world  do  for  Roger  Bacon? 
Burned  his  books,  broke  his  instruments, 
thrust  him  into  prison,  treated  him  with  cruelty 
passing  credence,  so  much  so,  indeed,  that 
worn  out  and  weary,  he  murmured  at  the  last, 
"Would  that  I  had  not  given  myself  so  much 
trouble  for  the  love  of  truth. ' '  In  the  inn  at 
Athens  there  was  no  room  for  Socrates,  nor 

63 


Earthly  Discords. 

could  Florence  find  any  welcome  for  Dante. 
When  Anaxagoras  announced  the  sun  to  be  a 
ball  of  fire  he  was  condemned  to  death  for 
teaching  such  heresy.  The  Peloponnesian 
patriarchs  could  not  permit  profanity  so  patent 
against  their  favorite  Apollo.  At  the  request 
of  Pericles,  his  lifelong  friend,  the  sentence 
was  commuted  to  banishment  for  life.  Not 
a  few  are  the  pages  such  as  these,  and  alas, 
with  shame  and  sorrow  must  it  be  confessed, 
many  of  them  from  sacred  history!  The  way 
the  church  has  fought  each  new  prophet  sent 
of  God  is  dark  and  dreadful  reading.  "If 
some  seer  saw  a  new  light  on  the  face  of  na- 
ture he  needs  must  suft'er  for  the  vision." 
If  some  teacher  would  be  true  to  his  trust  he 
must  be  reviled  and  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake;  for  such  has  been  the  story  of  the 
despiteful  ages. 


And  not  alone  is  the  church  blameworthy, 
for  even  science  must  plead  guilty  to  a  like 
charge.  Her  apostles,  too,  have  insisted  on 
closing  their  eyes  to  the  light  of  fresh  discov- 
ery. Instance  the  several  theories  of  heat. 
It  was  as  early  as  1798  that  Sir  Humphrey 
Davy  endeavored  to  prove  the  immateriality 
64 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

of  heat  by  showing  its  generation  through  the 
friction  of  two  pieces  of  ice  under  an  exhausted 
receiver;  and  in  1820,  on  being  elected  presi- 
dent of  the  Royal  Society  to  succeed  Sir 
Joseph  Banks,  he  read  a  paper  claiming  heat 
to  be  a  mode  of  motion.  But  so  incredulous 
were  the  scholars  that  they  simply  smiled. 
In  1804  Sir  Benjamin  Thompson,  better 
known  as  Count  Rumford,  propounded  the 
same  theory,  but  the  Royal  Society  was  still 
skeptical.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  as  late 
as  1863  Professor  Tyndall  gave  a  course  of 
lectures  on  heat  as  a  mode  of  motion,  contest- 
ing the  old  igneous-fluid  theory,  and  for  these 
he  was  literally  laughed  at  by  the  scientific 
world.  The  British  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science  in  open  debate  re- 
fused to  accept  it.  To-day  no  scientist  any- 
where, for  a  moment,  questions  it.  It  was 
advanced  by  Davy  and  Count  Rumford  full 
half  a  century  previous,  but  so  great  is  the 
popular  prejudice  against  anything  new,  that 
all  these  years  must  needs  lapse  ere  it  received 
the  stamp  of  University  approval.  Truly, 
indeed,  no  fold  is  large  enough  to  contain  all 
the  world's  prejudice.  Foolish  and  false  the 
impeachment  that    all   narrowness   is    in  the 

65 


Earthly  Discords. 

church!  Bigotry  climbs  over  all  fences,  gets 
into  all  inclosures.  The  history  of  the  world 
has  been  a  story  of  revolt  against  the  accept- 
ance of  new  truth.  Evolution  has  had  a  hard 
uphill  climb  of  it.  Even  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion was  full  fifty  years  fighting  its  way  into 
the  halls  of  learning. 

The  telegraph  it  took  well-nigh  as  long 
to  win  any  considerable  favor.  Man  is  a 
fighting  genius;  only  when  he  must,  will  he 
surrender.  As  the  ocean  greyhound  groping 
her  way  along  the  banks  of  Newfoundland, 
fog-encircled,  shoal-encompassed,  must  needs 
move  slowly  lest  icebergs  or  drifting  derelicts 
imperil  her  safety,  just  so  when  any  new  truth 
is  launched  and  puts  to  sea  its  progress  must 
at  first  be  slow.  Great  is  the  denseness, 
many  are  the  half-sunken  dangers.  And  if  it 
be  true  that  the  scientific  truth  comes  slowly 
how  much  more  slowly  the  moral  truth! 
Marking  the  fonner  by  the  speed  of  the 
Olympic  runner,  the  latter  would  be  the  pace 
of  the  snail.  If  it  took  evolution  half  a  cen- 
tury to  cleave  its  way  into  the  class-rooms, 
the  champions  of  liberty  must  not  be  dis- 
couraged at  freedom's  lazy  jog.  Though 
slow,  it  is  notwithstanding  sure.  For  the 
66 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

shackles  of  slavery  are  being  removed  gradu- 
ally, first  from  the  hand,  then  the  foot,  then 
the  mind,  and  soon  will  come  the  heart's  glad 
turn. 

God  speed  the  happy  hour! 

May  it  not  for  long  be  delayed! 

With  grateful  hearts  and  glad  hosannas 
would  we  usher  it  in. 

' '  For  we  can  do  nothing  against  the  truth 
but  for  the  truth. ' ' 


2.    The  Moral  Government  of  God. 

God  is  righteous.  His  righteousness  rules 
the  world.  His  sword  is  sharpened  against 
iniquity.  He  cannot  look  upon  sin  but  with 
abhorrence.  This  is  the  theme  that  trembles 
in  every  tone  of  Hebrew  prophecy.  No  truce 
can  ever  be  'twixt  righteousness  and  unright- 
eousness; i.  e.,  not  until  the  fundamental 
axioms  of  life  are  different  from  those  we  now 
accept. 

Professor  Huxley  once  said  that  there  may 
be  worlds  in  which  two  and  two  make  five, 
and  he  might  have  added  as  logically  that 
some  stellar  sphere  there  may  be,  in  the  ages 
yet  to  come,  where  holiness  and  iniquity  live 
together  in  peace;  but  not  until  the  nature  of 
67 


Earthly  Discords. 

things  is  subverted  and  contradictions  meet 
and  anarchy  is  law.  If  there  be  a  world 
where  two  and  two  make  five,  then  the  "five 
is  not  our  five  and  the  two  is  not  our  two, '  * 
and  if  some  nebular  space  there  be  where  love 
and  hatred  harmonize,  then  our  definitions 
must  undergo  revolution  radical.  For  God  is 
love,  but  his  love  is  just.  This  is  religion's 
intuitive  axiom,  her  basal-block.  There  is  an 
avenging  Holiness,  a  consuming  fire  of  infinite 
Purity  and  Love.  This  is  the  sublime  and 
awful  truth  writ  large  on  every  page  of  Inspi- 
ration. It  is  on  the  first  page,  it  is  on  the 
last;  it  is  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  in  the 
New;  it  is  in  the  poetry,  it  is  in  the  prophecy; 
in  the  history,  in  the  allegory;  and  may  we 
add,  it  is  in  nature  as  well  as  grace. 


Idle  to  fight  against  this  truth,  and  yet 
perhaps  no  doctrine  of  the  church  has  been 
so  challenged,  and  none  that  men  have  striven 
so  to  resist.  No  dogma  has  been  the  target 
for  such  stern  and  stringent  criticism;  none 
we  would  adventure  to  believe  has  been  so 
perverted,  none  so  maligned.  If  some  smart 
skeptic  be  emboldened  to  mount  the  rostrum 
and  hold  up  the  "mistakes  of  Moses"  to  jest 
68 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

and  ridicule,  much  of  his  eloquence  is  almost 
certain  to  be  a  tirade  against  the  church's 
teaching  of  punishment  for  sin. 

And  let  us  be  free  to  admit  that  much  of 
what  he  says  is  true.  In  attacking  the  medi- 
aeval conception,  unbelief  has  done  the  cause 
of  true  religion  a  service;  for  it  was  a  false 
limb,  and  dead,  fastened  on  to  the  old  trunk 
of  Christian  tradition.  Never  once  did  Jesus 
preach  a  woe  materialistic  such  as  Dante's. 
Mayhap  Jonathan  Edwards  did,  but  not 
Jesus.  From  his  divine  lips  we  have  no 
single  utterance  as  to  the  economic  workings 
of  the  lost  world.  Great  principles  he  laid 
down,  but  never  once  did  he  detail.  A  judi- 
cial sentence  is  the  bold  creation  of  the 
schoolmen.  It  is  the  nightmare  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages.  Infinite  Love  has  been  pictured 
with  a  lurid  shadow  on  the  face,  but  the  por- 
trayal is  unscriptural.  And  it  has  worked 
harm.  It  has  worked  harm  because  an  un- 
just shadowing  forth  of  the  final  reckoning 
tends  to  blunt  men's  minds  to  an  outline  that 
is  just.  The  basic  teaching  of  the  Master  is 
that  future  punishment  is  a  harvest,  that  the 
sinner  is  self-doomed.  Every  life  has  its  own 
reaping  in  the  economy  of  grace,  just  as  every 

69 


Earthly  Discords. 

field  has  its  own  return  in  the  economy  of 
nature.  Jesus  was  a  figurative  teacher.  He 
is  the  Peerless  Painter.  He  taught  in  parable 
and  without  a  parable  spake  he  not  unto  them. 
He  spoke  of  the  place  where  "The  worm 
dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched";  but 
this  almost  certainly  refers  to  the  valley  with- 
out the  walls  of  Jerusalem  where  the  refuse  of 
the  city  was  burned  and  its  defilement 
cleansed.  The  divine  love  is  so  inexorable 
that  it  becomes  a  fire;  but  what  the  character 
of  the  fire  is  Jesus  never  told  us,  and  no 
authority  has  been  given  the  church  to  fill  in 
the  silence  with  any  flights  of  frightful  fancy. 

Sin  cannot  go  unpunished,  because  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  it  is  suicidal.  It  carries 
within  itself  the  seeds  of  its  own  destruction. 
Sin  cuts  a  bloody  gash  in  the  conscience, 
severs  its  life  artery.  This  is  God's  moral 
government.     "The  wages  of  sin  is  death." 

"As  well  argue  with  an  African  tornado 
as  argue  with  that. ' '  Punishment  follows  sin 
just  as  certainly  as  shadow  follows  substance, 
but  as  to  what  the  nature  of  that  punishment 
will  be  let  us  hasten  to  confess  a  very  imper- 
fect knowledge.  We  have  not  been  acquainted 
with  that  secret,  final,  awful.  Not  ours  surely 
70 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

to  intermeddle!  "Are  there  few  that  be 
saved?"  Be  not  over-officious,  replied  the 
Master.  "Strive  to  enter  in."  What  will 
become  of  the  sinner?  Just  what  the  sinner 
lets  himself  become.  "Hear  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  ye  rulers  of  Sodom.  Give  ear  unto  the 
law  of  our  God,  ye  people  of  Gomorrah.  Say 
to  the  righteous,  it  shall  be  well  with  him. 
Woe  to  the  wicked,  it  shall  be  ill  with  him. 
For  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it. " 


How  forcibly  doth  our  own  Hawthorne 
drive  home  this  truth  in  "Marble  Faun,"  that 
sin  quenches  the  holiest  fires  in  the  soul's 
inner  chambers,  turns  life's  garden  into  a 
waste  where  death  reigns,  and  where  men 
have  lost  the  power  to  love.  Once  upon  a 
time,  long,  long  ago,  the  story  goes,  there 
lived  a  Tuscan  count  whose  likeness  to  the 
statue  of  the  Faun  by  Praxiteles  lends  the 
book  its  name.  A  happy,  spontaneous  youth 
he,  full  of  fun  and  frolic,  joyous,  handsome, 
eccentric. 

He  would  run  races  with  himself  in  the 
wood-path.  He  would  leap  up  to  catch  the 
overhanging  bough  of  an  ilex  and  swinging 
his  arms  alight  far  forward.     He  would  em- 

71 


Earthly  Discords. 

brace  the  trunk  of  a  hemlock  as  a  faun  might 
have  clasped  the  warm  grace  of  a  nymph, 
then  fling  himself  down  on  the  turf  and  kiss 
the  violets  and  daisies  and  wood  anemones. 
This  happy  youth  loved  a  dark-eyed  lassie 
whose  name  was  Miriam.  Miriam  had  a 
warm,  passionate  nature,  and  was  possessed  of 
strange,  mysterious  powers.  She  lived  in  the 
depth  of  the  Arcadian  wood,  the  sweet  child 
of  nature.  Together  they  learned  to  tame 
the  squirrels  and  the  foxes,  and  even  the 
oriole  and  bobolink  would  alight  on  their 
shoulders  in  answer  to  their  mimic  warble. 
The  wild  thrush  would  swing  on  the  twig  near 
by  and  pour  forth  its  full-throated  roundelay 
unbroken  by  any  chirrup  of  alarm. 

But  our  happy  young  lover  grew  jealous 
of  a  rival,  and  one  black  Friday  in  a  fit  of 
frenzy  he  took  this  brother's  life  for  the  sake 
of  the  dark-eyed  lassie  whom  he  loved.  Then 
he  turned  to  bespeak  her  as  his  bride.  How 
vividly  doth  the  novelist  picture  his  attitude  of 
mind  and  heart!  How  changed  the  ferns, 
the  flowers,  the  foliage!  How  fear  had  taken 
the  place  of  love!  How  the  very  oaks  seemed 
ready  to  fall  on  him!  How  the  winding  path- 
way seemed  full  of  wriggling  lizards  and  the 
72 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

silent  forest  full  of  echoes!  How  the  dead 
leaves  cracked!  The  hand  of  our  fugitive 
lover  is  hot,  the  step  uncertain,  the  whoie 
bearing  feverish.  The  brittle  branches  lying 
athwart  his  footpath  broke  as  he  stepped  on 
them,  and  startled  the  birds  from  their  nests 
and  the  wild  beasts  from  their  lairs — for  be  it 
noted  that  the  wild  beasts  came  forth.  The 
squirrels  ran  leaping  to  the  tops  of  the  tallest 
hemlocks  to  hide  themselves.  It  seemed  as 
though  the  dead  body  of  his  late  enemy  lay 
heavy  and  bleeding  across  his  heart,  and  all 
nature  knew  the  sinful  secret. 

"What  hast  thou  done?"  asked  Miriam, 
in  a  horror-stricken  whisper,  when  she  saw  the 
glow  of  rage  still  lurid  on  the  murderer's  face. 

' '  I  did  what  your  eyes  bade  me  do, ' '  was 
the  reply. 

Miriam  sank  back  dazed  as  though  struck 
by  a  bullet.  ''Then  we  two  are  guilty,"  she 
whispered;  "the  deed  knots  us  together  for 
time  and  eternity  like  the  coils  of  a  serpent. 
Ours  is  the  loathsomeness  of  a  union  cemented 
in  guilt,  and  our  condemned  spirits,  alas,  shut 
out  of  heaven. ' ' 

Then  suddenly  the  hilltop  grew  dark,  and 
the  owl  and  mocking-bird  sent  forth  a  dread- 

73 


Earthly  Discords. 

ful  whoop,  and  the  water  trickling  from  the 
rock  tasted  sour,  and  for  the  first  time  our 
hitherto  happy  youth  experienced  the  real 
bitterness  of  hell — not  its  fires  but  its  chill, 
rather;  for  the  hand  became  ice;  the  whole 
body  shook  as  with  the  cold  fit  of  a  Roman 
fever.  Gazing  at  her  beautiful  form  he 
seemed  to  have  felt  a  strange  indifference 
steal  over  his  spirit  as  with  overburdened 
heart  he  muttered,  "Farewell,  Miriam,  fare- 
well forever. ' ' 

"We  talk  of  breaking  law,"  says  George 
Adam  Smith,  "we  cannot  break  law;  we  can 
only  break  ourselves  against  law.  But  if  we 
sin  against  Love  we  do  destroy  her;  we  take 
from  her  the  power  to  redeem  and  sanctify  us. 

"I  believe  in  hell  because  I  believe  in  the 
love  of  God — not  in  a  hell  to  which  God  con- 
demns men  of  his  good  will  and  pleasure,  but 
in  a  hell  into  which  men  cast  themselves  from 
the  very  face  of  his  love  in  Jesus  Christ.  The 
place  has  been  painted  as  a  place  of  fire. 
But  when  we  contemplate  that  men  come  to 
it  with  the  holiest  fires  in  their  nature 
quenched,  we  shall  justly  feel  that  it  is  rather 
a  dreary  waste  of  ash  and  cinder,  strewn  with 
snow — some  ribbed  and  frosted  arctic  zone, 

74 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

silent  in  death,  where  there  is  no  life,  and  no 
life  because  no  Love,  and  no  Love  because  men 
in  rejecting  or  abusing  her  have  slain  their 
own  power  ever  again  to  feel  her  presence." 
Ah  me,  "Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee,  the 
wages  of  sin  is  death, ' '  death  of  honor,  death 
of  reverence,  death  of  conscience,  death  of 
faith,  death  of  hope,  death  of  peace,  death  of 
love. 


3.  The  Revolt  against  the  Spiritual  Gov- 
ernment of  Jesus  Christ. 

In  a  book  of  recent  issue  we  were  told  of 
an  old  colored  preacher — John  Jasper  by 
name — who  died  last  year  in  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, He  had  acquired  a  notoriety  quite 
considerable,  because  of  a  sermon  preached 
more  than  a  hundred  times,  in  the  midst  of 
which  he  would  declare,  with  strong  and  solemn 
accent,  "The  sun  do  move."  The  journals 
of  his  native  state  were  wont  to  make  sport  of 
Jasper's  olden-time  astronomy,  but  whatever 
his  wilfulness  in  refusing  to  accept  the  latest 
researches  of  science,  he  humbly  bowed  his 
heart  to  the  lordship  of  Christ  Jesus.  Accept- 
ing His  mastery  he  never  once  questioned  His 
ruling,   but    gladly  the   rather  did   he  carry 

75 


Earthly  Discords. 

every  thought  into  full  captivity  to  His  obedi- 
ence. 

Once  a  slave  to  human  cruelty,  he  was 
now  the  happy  doulos  to  the  bidding  of  Incar- 
nate Love.  And  so,  clean  in  character  and 
consecrated  in  calling,  he  was  the  instrument 
in  higher  hands  of  leading  many  a  seeking 
soul  into  the  secret  of  His  gracious  presence. 
Foolish  to  be  sure,  the  attitude  that  refuses 
allegiance  to  the  demonstrated  truths  of 
science,  but  how  infinitely  more  foolish  is  the 
soul  that  persistently  rebels  against  the  king- 
ship of  the  world's  Lord  and  Saviour. 


Calling  upon  an  invalid  lady  recently  I  found 
ler  reading  a  sermon  of  Campbell  Morgan's, 
in  which  was  a  story  that  had  almost  a  parallel 
in  her  own  life.  ' '  Strange, ' '  she  began,  ' '  but 
there's  a  story  here  that  just  suits  me  ex- 
actly." Then  opening  a  locket  she  said, 
"Read  this."  I  took  the  little  case,  and 
looking  very  closely,  saw  printed  therein,  in 
the  very  smallest  excelsior  type,  Mrs.  Elliot's 
hymn: 

"My  God,  my  Father!  while  I  stray 
Far  from  my  home,  in  life's  rough  way. 
Oh !  teach  me  from  my  heart  to  say, 
Thy  will  be  done." 

76 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

Then,    underneath    the    hymn    were    five 
dates   printed   in   red   ink.      "These  are  the 
black-letter,    not   the  red-letter,   days  of   my 
life,"  she  added,  smiling.      "The  first  is  the 
date  of  mother's  death,    and  oh,  how   I   re- 
belled, although   I  was  then  but  a  girl  in  my 
teens.      The  second,  three  years  later,  is  the 
date  of  father's  leaving  us— and  again  I   re- 
belled.     The   third   is   the   date   of  my   hus- 
band's   going,    and    still    I    murmured    and 
struggled   and   fought.      The  fourth  was  the 
taking  of  my  only  darling,  a  sweet  little  fellow 
of  five,    and   this  time    I    almost  cursed   my 
heavenly  Father,  for  all  my  loved  ones  were 
now  gone,  and  I  was  left  alone.     All  the  while 
I  was  not  a  Christian.      In  fact,  if  the  truth 
were  told,  I  had  grown  bitter  and  hard  and 
sour.      I   thought  God  was  punishing  me.      I 
see  now  he  was  not  punishing  but  educating 
me  by  a  spiritual  discipline,  and  I  have  since 
learned  to  say,  'The  Lord  gave  and  the  Lord 
hath  received,'  not  taken  away,  but  'received; 
'Blessed  be  the  name  of  the  Lord.'     Ah," 
she  added,  with  a  tremor,  "my  life,  too,  seems 
made  up  mostly  of  rebellions." 

"But   I  want  you  to  look  at  the  last."      I 
looked;  it  read  "March  3,  1898." 
77 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

"That  was  the  day  on  which  I  gave  my 
heart  to  the  Saviour,  That  was  the  great 
surrender.  You  notice  there  are  twenty-six 
years  between  the  first  date  and  the  last — 
twenty-six  years  of  fruitless  insurrection;  took 
me  six  and  twenty  years  to  learn  to  say,  'Thy 
will  be  done. '  ' ' 

"If  thou  shouldst  call  me  to  resign 
What  most  I  prize — it  ne'er  was  mine: 
I  only  yield  thee  what  was  thine; 
Thy  will  be  done. 

"Renew  my  will  from  day  to  day, 
Blend  it  with  thine,  and  take  away 
All  now  that  makes  it  hard  to  say, 
Thy  will  be  done." 

Have  you  learned  to  say  that,  dear  reader? 
Is  your  life  largely  rebellion?  Have  you  ad- 
mitted the  Saviour  into  your  life?  He  stands 
at  the  portal  of  your  heart  just  now  knocking 
for  entry.  He  will  not  force  the  lock,  but 
whosoever  he  be  that  openeth  the  door  shall 
have  the  Heavenly  Visitor  for  his  abiding 
guest.  Strange,  passing  strange,  that  men 
will  double-bolt  and  double-bar  their  soul 
dwelling  against  life's  most  loving,  most  last- 
ing Friend! 


78 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

"Behold  a  Stranger  at  the  door! 
He  gently  knocks,  has  knocked  before, 
Has  waited  long,  is  waiting  still; 
You  treat  no  other  friend  so  ill." 

I  call  you  to  loyal  submission  and  loving 
service.  Believe  it,  that  revolt  of  yours  is 
idle,  and  furthermore,  it  is  sin.  For  all  re- 
bellion against  truth  of  which  the  soul  is  con- 
vinced is  sin.  If  you  would  have  peace  you 
must  needs  first  surrender.  Do  not  put  off 
yielding  till  death  is  at  the  door.  'Tis  willing 
captivity  the  Master  asks.  Faith  has  its  fet- 
ters, but  they  are  glorious;  its  yoke,  but  what 
an  easy  yoke;  its  burden,  but  how  strangely, 
blessedly  light! 


The  story  is  told  of  Henry  Drummond 
that  on  one  occasion  he  remonstrated  with  a 
coachman  who  had  a  weakness  for  drink. 
"Suppose  your  horses  ran  away,"  he  said, 
"and  you  lost  control  of  them,  what  would 
you  do?"  The  man  said  he  did  not  know. 
"Now,  suppose,"  continued  Mr.  Drummond, 
"that  a  stronger  and  more  expert  reinsman 
than  you  sat  by  your  side,  what  would  you 
do.-*"  "I  should  give  him  the  lines."  was  the 
ready    answer.      And    doth    not    the    Divine 

79 


Earthly  Discords. 

Helper  stand  by  the  side  of  every  man  whose 
temper  is  violent,  whose  passions  are  head- 
strong, whose  appetite  is  past  control?  Verily 
indeed  He  doth.  A  very  present  help  is  He 
in  trouble.  His  are  overtures  of  strength 
granted  to  grapple  with  the  present  need  and 
pardon  for  the  past  guilt. 

His  is  a  hand  beckoning  us  to  happiness 
and  hope  and  rest.  His  a  voice  calling  us  to 
the  high  levels  of  purer  air  and  fuller,  more 
abundant,  living. 

For  the  Christian  life  is  the  only  natural, 
normal  life — the  life  of  harmony,  poise,  bal- 
ance. 'Tis  easier  to  obey  than  to  disobey. 
All  disobedience  implies  a  wrench,  a  jerk,  a 
strain.  Only  he  who  has  graduated  into  the 
slavery  of  unconditional  surrender  to  the 
divine  will  knows  the  true,  glad  liberty  of 
the  Christian's  walk. 

"For  he  that  is  called  in  the  Lord,  being 
a  servant,  is  the  Lord's  freeman,"  and  stands 
fast  in  that  liberty  wherewith  Christ  doth 
make  his  children  free. 


Some  time  since  it  was  our  sad  privilege  to 
be    called  in    to  minister  to  a  dying  young 
woman.     Her  husband  was  a  drunkard,  and 
So 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

who  but  knows  something  of  what  a  tale  that 
intimation  tells?  Entering  the  humble  home 
what  marks  of  misery  met  the  eye!  what  bare- 
ness! what  poverty!  what  signs  of  waste  and 
want  and  woe!  Closing  the  door  somewhat 
suddenly  an  echo  rang  through  the  narrow 
corridor.  Surely,  the  heart  kept  saying,  for 
sheer  cheerlessness  and  gloom,  after  the  jail 
and  prison  bar  must  come  the  drunkard's 
home.  Sitting  down  by  the  bedside  and 
greeting  the  sick  one  with  a  smile  and  a  word 
of  kindness,  the  remark  was  ventured,  "My 
dear  woman,  tell  me  your  troubles,  won't 
you?" 

"I  have  no  troubles,  sir,"  she  answered. 

"No  troubles?"  That  seemed  a  starthng 
confession.  A  drunkard's  home,  and  yet  no 
trouble!  Two  little  tots  in  the  corner,  one 
four,  the  other  six,  shoeless,  almost  garment- 
less,  and  yet  no  trouble!  No  picture  on  the 
wall,  no  carpet  on  the  floor,  no  curtain  on  the 
window,  no  flower  on  the  table,  no  nurse  in 
the  room,  no  kind  friend  near — not  even  a 
physician — and  yet  no  trouble! 

"My  life  was  nothing  but  trouble,"  she 
added,  after  a  little,  "until  a  few  weeks  ago 
I  brought  everything  to  Him  and  yielded." 
Si 


Earthly  Discords. 

Then,  after  a  short  pause,  "I  was  unfortunate 
in  my  marriage  life,  but — but — but — I  loved 
him." 

Another  silence  followed;  then  turning  and 
looking  into  my  eye  with  such  a  hungry  look, 
"I'm  so  glad  to  see  you!  Haven't  seen  any- 
body since  Sunday, ' '  it  was  Thursday,  * '  j 
thought  I'd  like  to  have  you  read  to  me  a 
psalm  and  speak  a  little  prayer.  My  father 
was  an  elder  in  Horatius  Bonar's  church  in 
Scotland,  and  I  get  great  comfort  from  some 
of  his  hymns."  Then  reaching  her  hand 
across  for  an  old  ragged,  paper-bound  hymn- 
book,  she  began  to  read.  "Oh,  yes,  sir,  I 
was  brought  up  right. ' ' 

"I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 
'Come  unto  me  and  rest; 
Lay  down,  thou  weary  one,  lay  down 
Thy  head  upon  my  breast.' 

"I  came  to  Jesus  as  I  was, 
Weary  and  worn  and  sad; 
I  found  in  him  a  resting-place. 
And  he  has  made  me  glad." 

"Do  you  think  you  could  sing  it  for  me?" 

"Well,  my  dear  woman,  I   am  not  much 

of  a  singer,  but  if  you  wish  it,  we  will  try 

together, ' '  and  so,  in  that  dingy,  disconsolate, 

82 


The  Sad  Note  of  Unbelief. 

dying  chamber  we   sung  the  hymn  of  hope 
immortal: 

"I  heard  the  voice  of  Jesus  say, 
'I  am  this  dark  world's  light; 
Look  unto  me,  thy  morn  shall  rise, 
And  all  thy  day  be  bright!' 
I  looked  to  Jesus  and  I  found 
In  him  my  star,  my  sun; 
And  in  that  light  of  life  I'll  walk, 
Till  traveling  days  are  done." 


83 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 


CHAPTER    IV. 
The  Hiss  of  the   Hypocrite. 

There  is  a  narrow  stretch  of  land  running 
through  the  heart  of  Arcadia  called  by  framers 
of  isothermal  charts  the  ' '  storm-belt. ' '  Almost 
every  summer  round  about  the  reaping  time 
a  destructive  hurricane  sweeps  through  it. 
First  is  felt  that  palpable  hush,  prophet  of 
the  coming  danger.  Gradually  the  sky 
frowns  and  blackens,  while  one  by  one  the 
birds  seek  shelter.  Soon  puffs  of  wind 
whirl  dust  along  the  road  followed  by  a  few 
drops,  and  forthwith  the  cannonading.  The 
rain  pelts  down  in  pitiless  fury.  Trees  strain 
and  groan  and  overturn.  The  roar  of  the  tor- 
rent, the  shriek  of  the  wind,  the  zigzag  line 
of  the  lightning,  fill  the  soul  with  awe  and 
dread  and  wonder.  Great  limbs  are  torn  from 
their  trunks  and  roots  from  their  grip  of  earth. 
Physical  nature  seems  in  pain.  In  a  few 
hours  the  tempest  passes  by  and  we  greet  the 
sunshine  and  the  birds  again. 

Once  in  one  of  these  sudden  fits  of  fury 
the  little  lake  by  which  we  rested  was  lashed 
87 


Earthly  Discords. 

into  the  ugliest  temper.  When  night  closed 
in  how  grateful  was  our  little  circle  for  a  roof 
and  a  refuge!  Retiring  we  were  rocked  to 
sleep  in  the  lap  of  Mother  Nature  and  to  the 
rhythm  of  her  awful  music.  Morning  came, 
and  what  a  change!  The  sky  was  clear,  the 
birds  were  singing,  the  little  lake  lay  peaceful 
as  the  grave.  It  was  indeed  a  grave,  a  cruel 
grave;  hardly  could  one  have  believed  that  it 
had  swallowed  up  three  lives  in  its  fair-faced 
treachery.  And  yet  the  little  lake  lay  so  in- 
nocent-appearing. Peaceful  as  a  tired  child 
it  slept,  with  a  smile  on  its  face  like  unto  that 
we  sometimes  see  on  our  little  dreaming  dar- 
lings. The  fishes  were  leaping,  the  surface 
was  sparkling,  the  wavelets  were  lapping  its 
shores,  and  difficult  was  it  to  realize  that  such 
a  smiling  surface  could  ever  be  darkened  into 
such  unpitying  rage. 


A  passage  there  is  in  the  first  Evangel  of 
our  faith  that  has  been  called  the  "storm-belt 
of  the  New  Testament. ' '  It  stretches  through 
the  twenty-third  chapter.  The  Master  has 
just  been  discoursing  about  Love. 

"Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with 
all  thy  heart  and  with  all  thy  soul  and  with  all 
88 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

thy  strength  and  with  all  thy  mind;  this  is  the 
first  and  great  commandment."  Love! 
Then,  like  a  bolt  out  of  the  blue  comes  this 
moral  lightning,  and  for  five  and  thirty  verses 
the  storm  sweeps  by  and  rages.  Demosthe- 
nes is  the  master  of  the  phillipic  when  he 
denounces  the  Athenians  for  their  sloth  and 
supineness,  but  verily  there  is  nothing  in  the 
nine  orations  of  Demosthenes  against  Philip, 
nothing  in  the  fourteen  orations  of  Cicero 
against  Mark  Antony,  that  can  compare  for  a 
moment  in  severity  of  tone  with  Christ's 
phillipic  in  the  twenty-third  of  Matthew. 
The  diatribe  is  fearful.  Eight  times  do  we 
read,  "Woe  unto  you  scribes  and  pharisees, 
hypocrites. ' '  Every  word  burns  like  a  flame, 
eats  like  a  canker — "blind  guides,  devourers, 
whited  sepulchers,  serpents,  vipers."  The 
sky  is  thick  and  black  and  heavy.  The 
thunder  rumbles  and  peals  and  cracks  hard 
by,  while  one  by  one  the  flashing  bolts  leap 
forth  with  merciless  effect.  Terrible  and 
deadly  are  the  blows  dealt,  while  each  time 
hypocrisy  is  the  target.  Never,  we  are  told, 
does  lightning  strike  twice  in  the  same  place, 
but  here  the  rule  is  broken;  every  time  hy- 
pocrisy is  the  mark.  Then  the  storm  passes 
So 


Earthly  Discords. 

by  and  we  catch  a  beautiful  sunset,  and  peace- 
ful; "Oh,  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that 
killest  the  prophets  and  stonest  them  which 
are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often  would  I  have 
gathered  thy  children  together  as  a  hen  gath- 
ereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  but  ye 
would  not.  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto 
you  desolate,  for  I  say  unto  you  ye  shall  not 
see  me  henceforth  until  ye  shall  say,  Blessed 
is  he  that  cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 


What  can  be  the  matter  with  this  word 
hypocrite?  How  comes  it  that  in  conver- 
sation it  is  whispered  soft  and  low.?  What 
defilement  clings  thereto?  Not  always  has  it 
been  a  tainted  word.  Once  it  showed  sound 
and  wholesome.  Hypocrites  were  imperson- 
ators on  the  stage  of  ancient  Greece;  tra- 
gedians were  they,  and  honorable  men.  The 
literal  meaning  of  the  word  is  one  who  ques- 
tions and  answers,  hence  one  who  imperson- 
ates. Not  infrequently  even  orators  were 
called  hypocrites.  Does  not  Roscius,  the 
greatest  of  Roman  comic  actors,  speak  of  his 
pupil  Cicero  as  a  hypocrite?  Such  the  usage 
of  the  word  for  several  centuries.  But  time 
soon  was  when  it  began  to  serve  a  figurative 
90 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

purport;  and  as  playing  a  part  is  usually  for 
deceitful  ends,  the  word  fell  from  its  high 
commanding  altitude,  and  kept  falling,  till 
to-day  it  has  become  a  verbal  degenerate,  no 
longer  desirable,  no  longer  respectable,  "wal- 
lowing rather  in  the  slums  of  human  speech.  " 


How  interesting  the  study  of  words!  How 
instructive!  The  weaknesses  and  sins  of  our 
poor,  frail  nature  can  be  traced  in  the  changes 
that  some  classic  roots  have  suffered.  Ety- 
mologists call  our  attention  to  the  word  "osten- 
sible," which  literally  means  "capable of  being 
shown, ' '  but  the  step  from  showing  things  to 
showing  them  off  remains  so  short  and  tempt- 
ing that  the  fatal  step  was  usually  taken;  the 
innocent  idiom  lost  its  coyness;  now  it  carries 
the  suspicion  of  flaunt  and  feign.  When  our 
early  English  writers  used  the  word  "counter- 
feit" they  had  an  eye  to  nothing  sinister;  they 
simply  meant  to  "copy  or  imitate,"  with  no 
intent  the  slightest  that  said  copy  should  ever 
be  dishonestly  substituted  for  the  original. 

Perhaps  no  word  carries  more  counsel  along 
the  line  of  moral  teaching  than  our  word 
"pretend" — at  first  meaning  simple  to  "lay 
claim  to  anything. ' '     Repeatedly  do  Shake- 

9' 


Earthly  Discords. 

speare  and  Milton  use  the  term  in  this  open, 
artless,  undesigning  sense  of  laying  claim  to  a 
title  or  heirloom  or  estate. 

"Why  shall  we  fight,  if  you  pretend  no 
title?"  (Henry  VI.) 

Does  not  Lord  Lytton  speak  of  Leslie  pre- 
tending to  the  hand  of  Violante,  meaning 
thereby  "aspire"?  Alas,  what  a  commen- 
tary on  the  cunning  of  the  human  heart  and 
that  our  pretenses  are  so  largely  false,  when 
we  learn  that  our  latest  lexicons  give  as  its 
primary  meaning  this  soiled,  corrupted  sense! 
So  the  first  has  become  last,  the  last  first. 
How  full  of  instruction  each  Miiller  and 
Trench  and  Wedgwood  and  Sayce  along  the 
line  of  words! 

Was  not  a  villain  in  early  Roman  life 
simply  one  attached  to  the  villa  or  farm — a 
slave,  we  might  say?  What  a  story  it  tells 
again  of  the  character  of  such  creatures  that 
the  original  meaning  is  hidden  in  the  root,  the 
slave  lost  in  the  scoundrel!  Verily  indeed 
the  history  of  words  carries  many  a  valued 
lesson  for  the  pulpit  and  the  sage.  "Ser- 
mons in  stones, ' '  the  poet  says,  and  sermons 
many  and  impressive  there  are,  too,  in  words. 
For  words    are   the   vessels   that   carry   the 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

soul's  freightage;  windows  are  they  that  show 
the  heart's  treasures.  If  the  furnishings  of 
the  soul  library  are  degrading,  the  choice  of 
words  must  soon  betray  the  fact.  For  words 
are  the  chief  vehicles  in  the  carriage  of 
thought. 

So,  as  we  rub  the  dust  and  grime  from 
many  of  our  verbal  pictures,  they  come  out 
into  beautiful  and  suggestive  freshness.  The 
deeper  truth,  alas,  that  lies  behind  this  par- 
ticular portrait  is,  that  every  man  is  two  men. 
There  is  the  person  as  he  actually  appears  on 
the  surface  and  the  deeper  man  beneath. 
Sometimes  the  actual  man  without  is  better 
than  the  ideal  man  within.  Such  was  Judas, 
and  Judas  was  a  hypocrite  of  the  baser  type. 

Not  infrequently,  however,  what  does  not 
appear  is  better  than  what  does.  So  our 
study  leads  us  to  confess  two  types  of  hypo- 
crites— those  who  deceive  others  and  those 
who  are  so  far  purblind  as  to  deceive  them- 
selves. One  of  the  teachings  of  Holy  Writ 
and  one  supported  by  experience  is  that  it  is 
possible  for  men  to  deceive  themselves.  Full 
oft  in  striving  to  deceive  our  fellow-men  we 
succeed  in  doing  that  very  thing,  and  often- 
times, alas,  in  the  attempt  we  fail,  fail  pite- 

93 


Earthly  Discords. 

ously,  deceiving  no  one  but  ourselves.  For 
does  not  the  prophet  tell  us  how  crafty  is  this 
heart  of  ours,  and  over  and  above  how  desper- 
ately wicked,  and  does  not  the  psalmist  cry 
out  in  words  burning  with  noble  glow  and 
ardor,  "Search  me,  Oh  God,  and  know  my 
heart;  try  me  and  know  my  thought  and  see 
if  there  be  any  wicked  way  in  me  and  lead  me 
in  the  way  everlasting." 


A  little  too  apt  are  we  to  think  that  the 
scribes  and  pharisees  whom  our  Master  so 
severely  and  sternly  denounced  were  openly 
wicked  and  dissolute  men.  Not  so.  That 
were  a  serious  misreading.  No  authority 
have  we  to  suppose  that  these  men  were 
guilty  of  loose  and  scandalous  living.  No- 
where does  our  Lord  accuse  them  of  unclean- 
ness  and  the  flagrant  sins.  Time  and  again 
indeed  he  notes  their  scrupulous  conformity 
to  the  letter.  These  men,  be  it  noted,  were 
the  religious  leaders  of  their  time.  Men  high 
up,  were  they,  in  the  councils  of  the  church. 
What  our  Saviour  condemns  in  them  is  their 
caste  spirit,  their  separateness,  pride,  outward 
fastidiousness,  their  proselytism,  extortion, 
long  prayers,  their  solicitousness  for  the  out- 

94 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

side  of  the  cup  and  platter  and  indifference  to 
the  weightier  matters  of  the  law.  Of  old  the 
philosopher  tells  us  of  the  knave  who  invented 
an  untruthful  story  and  narrated  it  so  fre- 
quently that  after  a  little  he  came  to  believe 
the  tale  as  part  of  his  own  life  history.  And 
these  Pharisees  kept  playing  at  religion  so 
much  and  so  long  that  they  grew  to  mistake 
the  letter  for  the  spirit,  thus  warning  us  surely 
of  the  danger  of  being  over  familiar  with 
sacred  things  and  the  consequent  snare  of 
self-deception.  For  when  religion  does  not 
touch  the  real  life  it  becomes  a  cloak,  and  a 
cloak  worn  constantly  becomes  a  habit,  and  if 
the  habit  of  our  lives  be  to  cover  up  our  dis- 
figurements so  that  they  cannot  be  seen,  we 
are  in  danger  of  becoming  blind  to  their  pres- 
ence and  being  thus  self-deceived. 

Wonderful  book,  this  Bible!  Wonderful 
man,  this  Jesus!  One  verse  in  his  opening 
sermon  is  a  master-stroke.  (Matthew  vi.  i) 
"Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your  alms  before 
men  to  be  seen  of  them."  "To  be  seen  of 
them!"  Here  is  the  nerve  of  the  mischief. 
"To  be  seen  of  them."  This  is  the  vital 
point;  thinking  what  man  will  say,  giving  for 
the  glory  of  self,   praying  to  the   audience. 

95 


Earthly  Discords. 

playing  to  the  gallery.  Beware  of  the  theatri- 
cal is  the  open  warning  to  an  age  that  loves 
the  trumpet  and  the  street  corner.  Learn  to 
give  thine  alms  in  secret;  then  forget  them. 
Beware  of  adding  up  thy  benevolences.  Be- 
ware of  memorandums.  Memorize  naught 
but  thy  sins  and  thy  mercies.  Let  not  thy 
right  hand  know  what  thy  left  hand  doeth. ' ' 
Closet  thyself  and  bar  the  door.  Thy  life 
look  intently  at  in  the  dark.  Commune  with 
thy  Father  in  the  quiet.  Of  the  incarnate 
One  the  prophet  wrote,  "He  shall  not  cry 
nor  lift  up  nor  cause  his  voice  to  be  heard  in 
the  street. ' '  When  he  retired  for  prayer  it 
was  usually  to  the  desert  or  the  mountain-top, 
and  at  midnight  or  in  the  early  dawn.  He 
"retired, "  note.  Be  this  picture  thy  pattern! 
Retire,  heart  of  mine!  How  a  man  conducts 
himself  in  his  home,  not  how  he  acts  in  the 
market-place,  is  the  true  index  of  character! 
How  few,  alas,  can  stand  these  searching 
tests  of  the  All-Seeing! 

"It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  re- 
ceive," but  as  some  one  notes,  the  giving 
that  increases  its  gifts  when  it  learns  the 
amounts  are  to  be  published  in  next  week's 
issue  of  the  calendar  is  infected  with  the  un- 
96 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

righteous  virus,  and  the  poison  will  sooner  or 
later  permeate  the  life.  Verily  such  benevo- 
lence has  its  reward.  The  man  who  excuses 
himself  from  uniting  with  the  church  militant 
lest  his  fellow-man  label  him  a  hypocrite,  is 
he  not  entitled  to  the  ugly  epithet  already? 
For  is  not  the  essence  of  the  malady  thinking 
what  man  will  say.-*  When  this  truth  grips 
us,  we  see  how  far-reaching  is  the  figure, 
reaching  down  into  the  inner  parts  as  all 
spiritual  figures  do,  and  out  into  the  infinite. 
Is  there  not  here  wide  and  ample  room  for 
heart-analysis?  Are  there  no  strict  religion- 
ists to-day  who  think  less  of  telling  an  untruth 
than  of  indulging  in  some  innocent  pleasure? 
Are  there  no  professed  disciples  of  the  Great 
Teacher  who  fill  prominent  seats  in  the  syna- 
gogue and  sing  with  upturned  eyes, 

"Take  time  to  be  holy, 
Speak  oft  with  thy  Lord, 
Abide  in  him  alway 
And  lean  on  his  word; 
Make  friends  of  God's  children, 
Help  those  who  are  weak," 

and  who  forthwith  go  out  straightway  to 
bleed  the  fatherless  and  widow  for  twelve  per 
cent?  Scribes  such  as  these,  alas,  we  must 
confess,  are  with  us  still,  and  it  is  of  these 

97 


Earthly  Discords. 

men  that  the  Master  speaks.  They  strain  at 
gnats  and  swallow  camels.  They  are  quib- 
blers,  dabblers  in  a  divine  art,  stammerers  in 
the  great  speech  of  heaven.  All  their  works 
they  do  to  be  seen  of  men.  They  shut  up  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  against  themselves.  The 
inwardness  of  true  religion  they  have  not 
learned;  the  searchingness  of  the  blessed  life 
they  have  not  felt.  For  "Thou  requirest 
truth  in  the  inward  parts"  and  "Blessed  are 
the  pure  in  heart  since  they  shall  see  God. ' ' 
Never  surely  a  time  when  we  so  needed 
these  reminders,  for  ours  is  an  age  honey- 
combed with  guile,  gilded  with  double-dealing. 
The  fiction  of  the  old  travelers  was,  that  be- 
fore the  crocodile  devoured  its  victim  it  shed 
tears,  and  men  there  are  to-day  who  will  weep 
over  the  widow's  misfortunes  then  eat  up  her 
substance.  The  counter  is  crooked,  the  law 
likewise.  The  drawing-room  has  mastered 
the  secret  of  being  unreal,  sometimes,  alas, 
the  church.  Who  has  not  felt  the  temptation 
to  overcolor  and  embroider,  to  transfigure 
sin  by  soothing  names,  to  conceal  its  deadly 
deformity?  Carlyle  thinks  that  when  we 
speak  of  falsehood  we  lay  our  finger  on  most 
of  the  world's  worst  maladies,  and  verily  the 
98 


The  Hiss  ot  the  1-lypocrite. 

sage  of  Craigenputtock  may  not  be  so  far 
astray,  since  what  is  sublimer  than  simple 
wholesome  truth?  What  doth  society  need 
more  for  its  ills  to-day?  Is  it  not  patent  that 
insincerity  is  one  of  life's  harshest  discords? 
In  its  last  analysis  hypocrisy  is  falsehood.  It 
is  the  basest  of  all  base  metals,  and  the 
"Master  of  all  good  workmen"  so  accounted 
it.  Very  little  had  He  to  say  concerning 
drunkenness  and  some  of  the  coarser  sins. 
To  the  poor  woman  taken  in  adultery  he  whis- 
pered, "Neither  do  I  condemn  thee,  go  and 
sin  no  more, ' '  but  against  all  sham  and  cant 
and  hollowness  how  he  thundered!  How 
severe  his  stricture!  How  terrible  his  re- 
buke! "If  a  soul  is  false  in  God's  presence, 
when  can  we  hope  for  it  to  be  true?" 

"Who  dares  think  one  thing  and  another  tell 
My  soul  doth  loath  him  as  the  gates  of  hell." 


Perhaps  we  cannot  do  better  by  way  of 
illustration  than  by  refreshing  our  minds  with 
a  little  abstract  from  literature.  By  consent 
unanimous  William  Shakespeare,  Bobbie 
Bums,  and  John  Ruskin  are  children  of  the 
first  order  of  genius.  Nothing  in  the  crea- 
tions of  these  cathedral    minds  looms  up  so 

99 


Earthly  Discords. 

prominent  as  their  intense  and  drastic  hatred 
of  sham. 

Lord  Timon  was  an  old  retired  Athenian 
general  whose  prowess  and  military  strategy 
had  delivered  Athens  from  many  a  besieging 
army  in  the  days  of  her  glory.  His  wealth 
was  great,  his  generosity  and  big-heartedness 
unbounded.  To  him  came  the  poor  with 
their  emptiness,  the  rich  with  their  flatteries, 
and  no  one  ever  left  his  palace-home  without 
some  token  of  his  liberality  and  favor. 
Crowded  was  his  hall  continually  with  a  great 
flood  of  visitors  who  tended  their  services  and 
bended  the  knee  to  Lord  Timon  and  rained 
flatteries  in  his  ears. 

In  this  current  stream  of  fawning  hypocrites 
were  many  who  brought  gifts.  For  it  was 
noted  that  a  gift  bestowed  on  the  noble  lord 
always  brought  one  seven  to  ten  times  more 
valuable  in  return.  One  of  these  sycophants, 
Lucius  by  name,  had  lately  sent  to  him  a  gift 
of  four  white  horses  trapped  in  silver  (hearing 
that  he  had  admired  them)  for  the  which  he 
received  a  jewel  in  return  of  many  times  their 
value.  LucuUus,  another  smooth-faced  time- 
server,  learning  that  Timon  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  his  dogs,  sent  him  forthwith  a  present  of  a 

ICG 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

brace  of  greyhounds,  which  was  accepted 
with  thanks  and  a  return  gift  made  of  twenty 
times  their  worth. 

Sometimes  these  human  parasites  would 
make  pretense  of  praise  toward  some  of  his 
possessions  with  the  hope  of  thus  securing 
them,  and  he,  good,  honest,  simple-hearted 
soul,  not  seeing  their  artifice,  would  straight- 
way send  the  thing  admired  next  day  with 
gracious  compliments. 

Hearing  that  a  certain  gentleman,  Ven- 
tidius  by  name,  was  thrown  into  prison  for  a 
debt,  he  at  once  discharged  the  debt  and 
started  him  in  business  with  a  considerable 
loan.  Scarcely  a  home  in  Athens  but  was 
adorned  by  some  evidence  of  Timon's  munifi- 
cence! His  hall  was  daily  beset  with  a  throng 
of  sharks — poets,  painters,  lords  and  ladies, 
merchants,  jewelers,  tradesmen — and  all  with 
one  design,  to  bleed  the  noble  Lord  with  flat- 
tery and  fulsomeness. 

"For  he  outwent  the  very  heart  of  kindness, 

Plutus,  the  god  of  gold,  was  but  his  steward." 

Alas,  such  generosity  could  not  last. 
Time  came  when  all  his  land  was  sold  or  for- 
feited, and  when  all  his  assets  sufficed  not 
half  to  pay  that  which    he  owed.      One  day 


lOI 


Earthly  Discords. 

his  steward  came  in  weeping  and  informed 
him  of  this  fact,  and  that  creditors  were 
clamoring  at  the  door.  He  bade  the  kind- 
hearted  fellow  to  hold  his  foolish  tears,  to 
remember  that  he  was  rich  in  noble  friends 
who  had  tasted  of  his  bounty: 

"Canst  thou  the  conscience  lack 
To  think  that  I  lack  friends?" 

So,  with  a  confident  tone  he  hasted  several 
of  his  servants  to  Lucius,  Lucullus,  and 
Sempronius,  men  whose  estate  had  almost 
been  supported  with  his  purse,  men  who 
could  but  with  difficulty  eat  a  meal  without 
Timon's  silver  treading  on  their  lips;  and  to 
Ventidius,  whom  he  had  lately  released  from 
prison,  and  who  had  just  stepped  into  vast 
wealth  by  the  death  of  a  relative. 

Lucullus  was  the  first  approached.  At 
first  he  thought  it  argued  another  gift  from 
Timon  and  was  very  cordial,  but  when  he 
understood  the  real  import  of  the  visit,  his 
answer  was,  ' '  I  always  knew  it  would  come 
to  this;  I  told  you  so!"  concluding  by  offer- 
ing the  servant  a  bribe  to  go  home  and  tell  his 
master  that  Lucullus  was  not  at  home. 
Lucius  was  the  next  addressed:  "Yes,  I  have 
been  befriended  much  from  our  noble  lord, 

I03 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

and  am  much  endeared  to  him;  how  very  un- 
fortunate that  I  should  have  made  that  pur- 
chase yesterday;  commend  me  bountifully  to 
your  master  and  tell  him  that  I  account  it  one 
of  the  greatest  afflictions  that  I  cannot  pleas- 
ure such  an  honorable  gentleman."  Now, 
Timon  had  been  a  father  to  Lucius,  had 
largely  supported  his  estate,  had  builded  his 
fine  mansion;  aye,  Timon 's  money  had  paid 
his  men  their  wages  and  kept  him  rolling  in 
comfort. 

"This  man  had  spent  of  Timon's  weahh 
And  now  ingratitude  makes  it  worse  than  stealth." 

And  a  similar  response  made  all  his  var- 
nished friends.  All  were  sorry,  or  said  they 
were.  The  very  tongues  that  hitherto  had 
praised  him  for  his  bounty  now  censured  him 
for  his  folly.  Even  Ventidius,  who  had  been 
redeemed  from  prison  and  was  now  rich,  even 
he  refused  a  loan  of  those  five  talents  that 
Timon  had  so  generously  volunteered  in  his 
distress.  Friends!  Alas,  he  had  none. 
That  was  the  sorrowful  discovery.  His 
princely  mansion  became  his  jail,  at  whose 
gate  iron-hearted  creditors  were  loudly  clamor- 
ing with  their  bills  and  bonds  and  mortgages, 
each  demanding  his  due,  "the  which  if  he 
103 


Earthly  Discords. 

should  dole  out  his  very  blood  in  drops  there 
were  not  drops  sufficient  to  discharge  the 
debt." 

"Alas!  what  a  god  is  gold 
That  he  is  worshiped  in  a  baser  temple 
Than  where  swine  feed." 

And  now  comes  the  remarkable  part  of  the 
tragedy — a  complete  transformation  in  the 
noble  lord.  Hard  and  sour  and  bitter  did  he 
become.  Athens  he  forsook  forever,  shaking 
the  very  dust  from  off  his  feet  as  a  testimony 
against  her  ungrateful  people.  Outside  the 
walls  he  turned  and  cursed  his  native  city. 
"Reeking  villains!  May  you  live  loathed  and 
long!  May  the  youth  of  sixteen  snatch  the 
crutch  from  his  old  father's  hand  and  with  it 
beat  his  brains  out!  May  confusion  ever  live 
among  you!  May  plagues  and  fevers,  leprosy 
and  cold  sciatica,  cripple  thy  senators!  May 
lust  and  liberty  creep  into  the  marrow  of  thy 
children  that  they  may  drown  themselves  in 
riot!  Detested  town!  Timon  will  to  the 
woods, 

"Where  he  shall  find 
The  unkindest  beast  more  kinder  than  mankind." 

So  he  built  himself  a  cave  in  the  forest 
where  he  might  never  see  the  face  of  man. 
104 


The  Hiss  of  the  Hypocrite. 

Alone  and  solitary  like  the  neighboring  wild 
beast  did  he  live,  drinking  the  cold  brook  and 
breathing  the  bleak  air.  Naked  he  stripped 
himself  that  he  might  not  retain  the  semblance 
even  of  a  man.  One  day,  digging  in  the 
ground,  his  spade  struck  something  heavy. 
He  threw  it  up.  It  was  a  pot  of  gold.  Here 
was  a  mass  of  treasure  that  would  have  pur- 
chased him  friends  and  flattery  again,  but  so 
sick  was  he  of  life's  duplicity  and  such  a 
rooted  hatred  did  he  bear  his  species,  that 
when  a  regiment  of  soldiers  passed  by  he  gave 
the  money  to  their  commander,  asking  noth- 
ing more  than  that  they  should  go  straightway 
and  level  Athens  with  the  ground,  burn,  slay, 
and  kill  all  her  people,  and  make  one  univer- 
sal massacre  of  the  city. 

Where  the  noble  lord  died,  and  how,  is  not 
told  us.  One  day  a  poor  soldier,  passing  by 
the  sea-beach  near  his  cave,  found  a  tomb  on 
the  verge  of  the  bank,  and  on  it  these  words: 

"Timon  is  dead  who  hath  outstretched  his  span; 
Some  beast  read  this,  there  does  not  live  a  man." 


Dear  Reader,  the  Church  of  God  can  stand 
much.  She  rises  glorious  from  the  fires  of 
persecution.      The  soil  of  poverty  lends  luster 

^05 


Earthly  Discords. 

to  her  brow  as  the  barren,  sterile  hills  of  Scot- 
land add  a  purple  blossom  to  the  heather;  but  in 
the  atmosphere  of  unreality  she  loses  her  life. 
In  traveling  we  have  noticed  how  at  each  station 
the  brakeman  takes  the  hammer  and  taps  the 
wheels.  If  there  is  any  weakness  the  sharp 
ear  of  the  expert  soon  detects  it.  The  world 
to-day  is  listening  closely  to  the  triumph  song 
of  the  King's  children.  Woe  unto  us  if  our 
lives  are  not  in  tune.  We  may  deceive  our- 
selves; we  cannot  always  deceive  our  fellow- 
men;  never  can  we  hope  to  deceive  Him. 


1 06 


The  Noisy   Passiox   for  Pelf. 


CHAPTER   V. 

The  Noisy  Passion   for  Pelf. 

A  most  artful  touch  in  the  filHng  in  of  one 
of  the  parables  of  the  Great  Teacher,  is  that 
line  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  deceitfulness  of 
riches.  He  has  just  thrown  an  outline  of  the 
sower  upon  the  canvas,  and  now  he  details. 

"Some  seed  fell  on  good  ground,  but  it 
was  choked;  the  cares  of  this  world  and  the 
deceitfulness  of  riches  and  the  lust  of  other 
things  entered  in,  choked  the  word,  and  it 
became  unfruitful, ' ' 

The  skilfulness  of  the  stroke  consists  in  its 
seeming  simplicity  and  the  greater  truth  that 
lies,  unseen  to  the  outer  sense,  beneath. 
"Riches  take  to  themselves  wings  and  fly 
away. ' '  False  are  they,  we  say,  and  fickle, 
slipping  through  your  fingers  much  like  the 
trout  the  youth  catches  in  the  summer  stream. 
This  is  the  surface  glimmer  that  first  arrests 
the  eye,  but  this  is  not  the  central  light;  but 
a  reflected  gleam  is  this.  The  larger  light  is 
hidden,  as  always,  in  the  parable.  The  Mas- 
ter meant  self-deception;  not  the  effect  of  our 
109 


Earthly  Discords. 

riches  upon  others,  but  its  effect  upon  our- 
selves. Never  do  we  moralize  on  the  deceit- 
fulness  of  poverty  because  poverty  knows  no 
deception.  Poverty  paints;  poverty  poses; 
poverty  puts  on  airs;  poverty  tempts  to  pass 
itself  off  for  something  that  it  is  not,  but  pov- 
erty never  disillusions.  My  poverty  may 
deceive  others;  never  does  it  deceive  me. 
All  the  while  I  know  the  facts,  the  bare,  nude, 
negative  facts.  Poverty  shows  one  up  to  him- 
self, just  as  he  is,  just  as  his  friends  are,  just 
as  the  world  is.  Poverty  is  honest,  horribly 
honest.  Poverty  tells  the  truth,  the  trouble- 
some truth,  the  tormenting  truth.  Is  anything 
sadder  than  proud  poverty?  Riches  throws 
a  glamour  over  everything.  It  lends  a  strange, 
weird  witchery  to  the  lake,  the  landscape,  the 
cult,  the  temple,  the  task,  the  tool.  Moun- 
tain and  rock,  hunger  and  cold,  famine  and 
fever,  have  a  charm  in  the  Alaskan  Eldorado. 
When  riches  comes  nothing  abides  the  same. 
The  life  is  different,  the  politics,  the  philos- 
ophy, the  religion — all  different.  The  fortu- 
nate fellow — or  the  unfortunate  mayhap — sees 
things  through  gold-rimmed,  gold-tinted 
lenses.  Like  the  stick  in  the  bottom  of  the 
stream,  the  light  is  refracted,  the  stick  twisted. 

I  lO 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

There  is  an  optical  delusion,  a  false  perspec- 
tive. How  oft  we  hear  the  haughtiest  souls 
speak  of  their  own  unworthiness,  thereby 
lending  us  the  impression  that  they  are  the 
least  conscious  of  the  presence  of  the  pride- 
poison  in  their  hearts;  in  this  lies  its  subtlety. 
This,  likewise,  it  is  that  is  meant  by  the 
deceitfulness  of  riches. 


The  illusive  atmosphere  of  affluence  arises 
largely  from  the  fact  that  the  desire  of  the 
heart  is  never  gratified.  "The  eye  is  not 
satisfied  with  seeing  nor  is  the  ear  filled  with 
hearing."  "How  much  is  enough?"  the  old 
proverb  runs,  and  the  answer  returns,  "A 
little  more  than  one  has. ' '  The  great  money 
miser  rarely  knows  for  why  he  accumulates 
his  money.  Of  such  little  worth  is  it  to  him. 
"Just  as  at  base-ball,"  says  Ruskin,  "you 
get  more  runs.  There  is  no  use  in  the  runs, 
but  to  get  more  of  them  than  other  people  is 
the  game. ' '  And  no  use  can  come  of  the 
money  save  to  have  more  than  neighbor 
Jones,  to  pile  it  up  mountain-high,  to  erect 
thereon  an  altar  graven  after  the  image  of  the 
golden  calf,  to  regularly  visit  the  sacred  shrine 
and  bow  the  knee  with  the  homage  of  idolatry. 
II 1 


Earthly  Discords. 

Let  us  speak  an  illustration,  one  we  are 
meeting  day  by  day  in  life's  dusty  pilgrimage. 
Here  is  a  young  man  starting  out  with  the 
one  dominant  aim  of  making  money — twenty 
thousand  dollars  say — we  can  start  at  that. 
That  is  the  height  of  his  ambition — to  be 
worth  twenty  thousand  dollars.  With  that 
sum  total  he  would  be  satisfied,  he  thinks. 
His  word  would  have  so  much  more  weight 
in  politics  and  on  the  marts  of  trade.  He 
would  be  so  free,  so  calm,  so  independent. 
So  he  plods  on  till  in  the  course  of  five  years' 
slavery  he  is  worth  that  amount.  How  much? 
Twenty  thousand  dollars.  Is  he  satisfied.'' 
Does  he  feel  that  he  has  enough?  Now,  that 
is  just  the  point  worth  noting.  Herein  lies 
the  "curious  deceitfulness  of  the  thing." 
Not  only  is  he  not  satisfied,  he  is  more  dis- 
satisfied than  the  day  he  started.  He  feels 
poorer,  astonishingly  poorer.  H  is  ambition  now 
is  one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  He  works 
harder  than  ever,  morning  and  evening,  night 
and  day,  year  in,  year  out;  denies  himself  of 
art,  music,  poetry,  literature,  culture,  travel, 
friends,  society,  till  at  last  some  bright  morn- 
ing on  the  Exchange  he  is  marked,  "A,  B,  C, 
I,  2,  3,  one  hundred  thousand  dollars." 

I  12 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf, 

And  now  the  second  milestone  on  the 
desert  journey  has  been  reached.  And  the 
tempting  mirage  has  pushed  on  with  duplicate 
pace;  like  the  Olympian  runner  each  succeed- 
ing stride  is  longer.  The  third  landmark 
reads  a  million.  But  standing  on  his  already 
earnings  the  distance  seems  not  far.  Be- 
sides, do  not  all  successful  men  say  that  the 
sterner  troubles  are  at  the  start.'  Do  not 
riches  grow  like  the  rolling  snowball?  Did 
not  a  famous  financier  once  admit  that  he  had 
more  difficulty  in  gathering  his  first  little 
bundle  than  all  the  rest  of  the  mammoth  for- 
tune? And  here  I  have  surely  a  good  start; 
one  hundred  thousand  dollars.  Why,  a  sum 
of  money  doubles  itself  in  fifteen  years  at  six 
per  cent.  And  so  he  starts  the  third  stage  of 
the  journey.  How  tiresome  and  hot  the  trail! 
Heavy  load,  growing  heavier!  Nervousness, 
restlessness,  sleeplessness,  avariciousness; 
little  time  has  he  for  reading,  less  for  wor- 
ship, none  to  study  the  wondrous  development 
of  his  child.  Bonds,  mortgages,  banks,  safe 
deposits,  government  securities,  gold,  silver, 
cash,  collateral!  And  so  the  years  roll  on, 
five,  ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  twenty-five,  thirty, 
thirty-five,   forty,  sixty-five  years,  and  worth 

113 


Earthly  Discords. 

a  million — the  third  milestone  of  the  toilsome 
stretch.  Once  his  ambition  was  twenty  thou- 
sand; now  he  has  that  income  every  month. 
Does  he  feel  rich.'*  Why  it  is  one  of  the 
strangest  things  in  life's  wily  involvement. 
He  knows  for  a  surety  he  cannot  live  ten 
years,  but  he  is  more  discontented  than  the 
day  he  went  forth  on  his  eager  adventure. 
The  poet  tells  us  of  the  Greek  youth  who  was 
lured  by  a  beautiful  maiden  into  her  forest 
home.  She  sang  so  sweetly  and  winked  so 
slyly  and  tossed  her  dainty  feet  so  enticingly 
— throwing  kisses  at  him  all  the  while  from 
the  tips  of  her  tidy  fingers — that  for  the  nonce 
he  forgot  home  and  loved  ones!  On  and  on 
and  yet  on  she  drew  him,  over  the  rocks  and 
the  bog  and  the  brambles,  till  at  the  end  of 
the  day  his  chase  was  given  him  and  he 
clasped  in  his  arms  a  repulsive  old  sorceress 
with  a  scowl  on  her  face  and  a  look  of  envy 
in  her  eye.  Such  is  gold  close  at  hand  and 
stripped  of  its  glamour!  Here  surely  abides  a 
startling  sermon  on  the  vanity  of  things  earthly. 
When  we  speak  the  word  "satisfaction,"  we 
are  reaching  down  to  the  heart's  immortal  hun- 
gering, and  "things"  were  powerless  to  quiet 
that;  they  make  a  vacuum,  not  fill  it.  "As 
114 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

easy  to  fill  a  chest  with  grace, ' '  Phillips 
Brooks  tells  us,  "or  a  vessel  with  virtue,  as  a 
heart  with  things.  "  In  Plato's  great  banquet 
food  is  not  even  referred  to,  and  in  Sir 
Thomas  More's  ideal  republic  is  not  gold  de- 
spised and  put  to  menial  uses?  How  little 
these  sons  of  genius  cared  for  the  things  that 
are  seen  and  temporal!  Emerson  speaks  of 
a  certain  judge  in  Massachusetts  who  at  sixty 
proposed  to  resign,  alleging  that  he  perceived 
a  certain  decay  in  his  faculties.  Dissuaded 
by  his  friends,  he  postponed  the  idea.  At 
seventy  it  was  hinted  to  him  that  possibly  it 
would  be  better  to  retire,  but  he  now  replied 
that  he  considered  his  judgment  as  robust  as 
ever.  Ah  me,  herein  lies  one  of  the  illusions 
of  nature!  This  is  the  deceitfulness  of  age. 
Age  like  some  types  of  disease  hath  powers 
wonderful  of  delusion.  One  of  the  strange 
phases  of  pulmonary  trouble  is  its  hectic  flush, 
its  power  to  outwit  and  throw  a  hopeful  mirage 
athwart  to-morrow's  footpath.  Not  less  is 
the  snare  and  vanity  of  abundance.  "For  he 
that  loveth  silver  shall  not  be  satisfied  with 
silver,  and  better  is  a  handful  with  quietness 
than  both  the  hands  full  with  travail  and  sore- 
ness of  spirit. " 


Earthly  Discords. 

Perhaps  the  fact  that  gold  and  silver  tempt 
us  so  with  hopes  of  happiness  in  an  age  of 
pleasure-seeking  is  largely  the  cause  of  our 
strange  unrest.  What  may  be  the  source  of 
true  happiness?  A  perfect  body,  Mr.  A 
says,  and  becomes  an  admirer  of  Hercules; 
knowledge,  Mr.  B  answers,  and  becomes  a 
student  at  the  shrine  of  Minerva;  doing  good, 
Mr.  C  whispers  and  becomes  a  disciple  of 
Him  who  "came  not  to  be  ministered  unto 
but  to  minister  and  to  give  His  life  a  ransom 
for  many. ' '  But  however  many  the  accents, 
one  strain  is  clear,  distinct,  piercing,  insistent 
— the  voice  of  great  possessions.  And  it 
were  the  height  of  folly  to  deny  the  might 
of  money,  for  does  it  not  represent  every- 
thing that  may  be  purchased?  Doth  not 
a  great  estate  mean  a  comfortable  home, 
good  books,  beautiful  pictures,  travel,  recre- 
ation, freedom  from  faggery?  Does  it  not 
furthermore  denote  the  power  of  helping  the 
poor,  giving  to  charity,  establishing  reforms, 
founding  homes  of  refuge  for  the  weary  and 
heavy  laden,  and  thus  fulfilling  the  will  of 
the  Christ?  If  the  old  Ionian  sage  was 
right  when  he  said  that  "Knowledge  is 
power, ' '  surely  the  same  were  true  of  money; 
ii6 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

for  money  is  influence,  it  is  distinction,  it  is 
respect. 

Such  is  the  voice  of  the  age,  and  some- 
times it  is  almost  worth  one's  reputation  as  a 
judge  of  true  art  to  dispute  its  range  and 
quality.  "Periods  there  are,  indeed,"  says 
W.  J.  Dawson,  "when  we  have  felt  like  rest- 
ing under  its  spell  and  acquiescing."  Here, 
for  instance,  to  draw  on  personal  acquaint- 
ance, is  an  old  college  friend.  Many  a  happy 
hour  we  spent  together,  both  graduating  in 
ninety,  he  a  tall,  stately,  personable  figure 
with  a  clean-cut,  handsome  face  and  an  intel- 
lect as  clear  and  keen  and  bracing  as  a  frosty, 
moonlight  sleigh-ride  in  our  Canadian  winter 
home.  But  he  has  tubercular  leanings.  If 
only  he  were  a  rich  man's  son  he  could  come 
out  here  to  lovely  Pasadena  and  postpone  the 
inevitable,  but  since  his  father  is  a  humble 
toiler  in  life's  lowly  ranks,  he  must  stay  at 
home  and  surrender,  for  disease  wins. 

Alas,  many  a  Keats  and  Mozart  and  Chat- 
terton  have  not  lived  out  half  their  days  for 
lack  of  the  comforts  that  wealth  could  have 
lent  them.  Yes,  money  is  mighty!  Alto- 
gether outside  the  province  of  question  is  that 
fact.  Money  is  mighty,  but  not  thereby  al- 
117 


Earthly  Discords. 

mighty.  Some  things  elude  its  grasp;  the 
best  things  elude  its  grasp.  Everything  in 
the  counting-house  it  can  have,  but  happily 
everything  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  counting- 
house.  Reputation  it  can  purchase,  but  not 
character.  Patience  it  can  buy,  but  not 
peace;  flattery,  but  not  friendship.  Carve  it 
cannot  a  line  of  glory  on  a  man's  brow,  nor 
chisel  a  curve  of  beauty  on  a  woman's  face. 
How  coarse  and  cruel  Watts 's  portrait  of 
Mammon!  How  hideous  the  face,  the  eye, 
the  lip!  Travelers  tell  us  that  as  you  ap- 
proach the  city  of  Constantinople  it  is  a  pic- 
ture of  beauty  with  its  domes  and  mosques 
and  minarets,  but  when  the  city  is  studied  at 
closer  range  with  its  dogs  and  dirt  and  general 
uncleanness,  the  enchantment  vanishes.  So 
do  men  find  wealth  and  great  possessions.  If 
distance  lends  enchantment,  nearness  removes 
the  mask  and  shows  the  real  face.  Of  old 
the  sage  told  us  of  the  steamer  sinking  in 
mid-ocean,  and  of  the  voyagers  throwing  their 
diamonds  into  the  deep.  Great  is  the  love  of 
money,  but  greater  is  the  love  of  life.  "Give 
me  neither  poverty  nor  riches,"  cried  the 
psalmist.  Let  me  live  in  the  temperate  zone, 
midway  between  the  frosts  of  winter  and  the 
118 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

heats  of  summer,  for  if  the  one  chills  the 
nature  and  sponges  it  of  everything  that  is 
noble,  the  other  lends  sorrow  and  vexing  dis- 
content, r 

How  unlike  the  spirit  of  the  hour  is  the 
story  of  Chinese  Gordon!  The  more  we  learn 
of  this  remarkable  man  the  more  we  feel  like 
saying  with  Huxley,  "the  most  refreshing 
character  of  the  century."  For  his  services 
in  China  it  will  be  remembered  the  govern- 
ment sought  to  reward  him,  but  he  declined 
all  honors.  Money  and  titles  he  scorned;  but 
a  medal  inscribed  with  his  name  and  a  record 
of  his  thirty-three  engagements  was  accepted 
because  it  could  not  well  be  refused.  After 
his  tragic  death,  that  medal  could  nowhere  be 
traced.  What  a  revelation  of  the  great  sol- 
dier's unselfishness  unfolds  when  we  learn 
that  the  medal  had  been  sent  to  the  poor  of 
Manchester  during  the  famine,  with  an  anony- 
mous letter  accompanying  it,  requesting  that 
the  ore  be  melted  down  and  given  to  the  hun- 
gry children  in  that  great  city.  Then,  in  his 
diary  he  wrote  these  words:  "The  last  and 
only  thing  I  have  in  this  world  that  I  value,  I 
have  given  over  to  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
Verily,  lowliness  is  never  so  lovely  as  when 
119 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  crowd  is  cheering,  and  humility  is  never  so 
beautiful  as  at  the  Cross. 


Many  there  be  to-day  who  argue  that  the 
greatest  danger  of  Mammon-worship  consists 
in  its  enslaving  power.  This  they  claim  it  is 
that  Scripture  means  when  it  speaks  of  "the 
root  of  all  evil. "  For  riches  itself  is  a  bless- 
ing, a  gift  from  the  good  Father,  but  when 
the  heart's  affection  is  set  thereon,  it  becomes 
a  bane,  a  blight.  Money  makes  a  man  in  a 
certain  deep,  real  sense  a  freeman,  the  love 
thereof  makes  of  him  a  slave.  And  the  de- 
ceitfulness  of  the  danger  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  done  so  gradually. 

Ary  Schefifer  pictures  Satan  leading  the 
Master  to  the  verge  of  the  cliff  and  bidding 
him  to  throw  himself  over  among  the  rocks 
and  the  skulls  and  the  boulders.  But  the 
famous  painting  is  true  neither  to  Scripture 
nor  to  life.  For  Scripture  tells  us  it  was  the 
pinnacle  of  the  temple  to  which  the  Christ  was 
led,  and  the  teaching  of  life  is  that  the  evil 
one  leads  each  innocent  youth  where  the  slant 
is  gentle,  the  slope  easy,  and  where  fragrant 
flowers  are  blooming,  not  where  broken  bones 
are  bleaching.  The  disciple  of  Isaak  Walton 
1 20 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

noted  how  Satan  always  baits  his  hook  with 
beauty,  how  he  uses  the  very  finest  thread  and 
makes  it  water-color.     Hans  Anderson  tells 
us  of  the  doth  woven  for  the  king's  garment. 
"The  thread  was   so  fine  that  it  was  invis- 
ible "       The   chain   of     each   evil    habit    is 
wound    around  us  day  by  day.      Each  day 
shows  it  stronger,  thicker,  tighter,   heavier- 
like  the  fabled  thread  in  the  old  Greek  trag- 
edy, the  thread  sufficed  to  lift  the  string,  the 
string  the  rope,  the  rope  the  chain,  the  chain 

the  anchor. 

In  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews  we  read, 
"Take  heed  lest  there  be  in  any  of  you  an 
evil  heart  of  unbelief  in  departing  from  the 
living  God,  but  exhort  one  another  while  it  is 
called  to-day  lest   any  of   you  be  hardened 
through  the  deceitfulness  of  sin."     This  is 
the  like-enslaving  power  of  sin.     The  Mas- 
ter's perpetual  warning  against  the  danger  of 
indulgence  is  in  view  of  its  captivating  power. 
Many  things  in  life  are  dangerous  to  possess 
because  they  tend  to  possess  us— so  treacher- 
ous their  mood,  so  tenacious  their  hold,  like 
the  bull-dog  bite  of  which  Emerson  speaks, 
where  the  head  must  needs  be  severed  if  the 
teeth  would  be  loosened.     Ruskin  tells  us  of 


121 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  wreck  on  the  California  coast  in  which 
one  of  the  passengers  fastened  a  belt  filled 
with  ore  about  his  waist.  Later  his  body  was 
found  at  the  bottom  of  the  bay.  "Now," 
says  the  critic,  "had  he  the  gold,  or  had  the 
gold  him?" 

Luxury  tends  to  selfishness  and  coarse- 
ness, and  the  swamping  of  the  higher  man- 
hood, like  the  Newfoundland  dog  that  drags 
his  sinking  master  ashore,  but  keeps  the  head 
under  water,  and  so  in  the  act  of  saving  him, 
drowns  him.  It  is  said  that  when  Mahomet 
reached  the  gate  of  Damascus  and  saw  the 
loveliness  of  the  place,  he  turned  away,  say- 
ing, '  *  I  dare  not  trust  myself  in  such  a  garden 
of  the  gods. "  One  of  Emerson's  ancestors 
was  in  the  habit  of  praying  that  none  of  his 
posterity  might  be  rich.  Agassiz  declared  he 
had  no  time  to  waste  in  making  money,  for 
the  great  naturalist  felt  that  it  was  poverty 
that  toughened  soul-fiber  and  made  the  true 
knight-errant.  How  awful  the  description  of 
the  first  Rothschild,  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  devout  worshipers  that  ever  laid  a  with- 
ered soul  on  the  altar  of  Mammon!  When 
George  William  Curtis  looked  through  Mr. 
Tidbottom's  spectacles  he  saw  the  real  man. 

122 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

At  one  creature  he  looked  and  saw  a  ledger,  at 
another  and  saw  a  billiard  cue.  Alas,  what 
strange  and  sorrowful  sights  would  greet  our 
eyes  could  we  but  read  as  He  does  who 
knoweth  all  the  thoughts  and  intents  of  the 
hearts!  How  we  should  go  out  in  pity  and 
fellow-feeling  toward  those  who  have  given 
themselves  over  to  idolatry  and  vanity  and 
wicked  works!  When  President  Van  Buren 
heard  that  his  son  had  become  engaged  to  a 
lady  of  affluence,  he  is  said  to  have  remarked, 
"Well,  poor  boy,  he  is  ruined;  he  will  give 
up  the  study  of  law,  for  which  he  has  such 
talent,  and  become  the  least  useful  of  human 
beings — a  rich  man." 

Naturalists  tell  us  that  tropical  birds  are 
often  caught  by  alighting  on  strongly  scented 
trees  and  becoming  stunned  and  stupefied  by 
the  fragrance,  and  many  a  pilgrim  to  the 
better  land  has  stood  the  hard  fare  of  want 
and  abasement  nobly — aye,  and  thrived  there- 
on— only  to  become  a  moral  weakling  in  the 
garden  of  luxury.  Blessed,  indeed,  the  child 
that  knoweth  how  to  abound,  that  "every- 
where and  in  all  things  is  instructed  both  to 
be  full  and  to  be  hungry,  both  to  abound  and 
to  suffer  need. ' ' 


Earthly  Discords. 

In  his  "Thoughts  for  a  young  man  starting 
out  in  Hf e, ' '  the  sage  of  Antioch  notes  how 
great  wealth  tends  to  become  a  snare,  in  that 
it  makes  real  munificence  difficult,  that  the 
millionaire  who  gives  away  half  of  his  princi- 
pal no  more  makes  a  sacrifice  than  the  man 
afflicted  with  dropsy,  and  whose  tissues  hold 
a  bucketful  of  the  morbid  liquid,  makes  a 
sacrifice  when  he  is  tapped  for  a  gallon.  He 
is  in  a  better  state  after  than  before.  But 
how  difficult  to  make  that  truth  vital  to  the 
ambitious  hearts  of  men!  Here  is  a  well- 
known  benefactor  who  has  just  given  several 
millions  of  dollars  toward  colleges  and  differ- 
ent charities;  but  when  we  ponder  the  fact 
that  he  dictates  the  policy  of  a  trust  which 
paid  last  year  something  like  forty  millions  of 
dollars  in  profits,  surely  the  munificent  act 
loses  all  of  its  sacrifice  and  much  of  its  phil- 
anthropy. And  what  of  that  great  and  in- 
creasing company  who  feel  no  obligation  to 
give  anything,  whose  sympathies  have  dried, 
to  whom  giving  even  a  pittance  is  a  real  pain? 
What  of  them?  Serfs  are  they,  thralls,  blind 
bondmen.  Not  a  greater  slave  to  his  glass  is 
the  drunkard,  nor  the  libertine  to  his  passion. 

They  remind  us  of  the  mouse  who  got  the 
124 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

cheese,  but  who  got  it  in  the  trap.  Sadly, 
indeed,  must  it  be  confessed  that  a  consider- 
able company  pass  out  and  in  among  us  who 
are  nothing  apart  from  what  they  possess, 
things  which  they  have  collected  around  them- 
selves, therein  being  well  compared  to  the 
case-worm,  which  gathers  about  itself  a  coat 
of  sticks  and  stones  and  shells  many  times  its 
size,  then  glues  itself  to  the  bottom  of  the 
channel  and  feeds  on  spawn-fish.  Tearing 
apart  the  outer  coating  of  the  larva  we  are 
surprised  at  its  mass;  shell  after  shell  comes 
off — straw  and  stalks  and  roots — and  when 
we  reach  the  grub  within,  it  is  the  tiniest  in- 
sect. So  with  many  who  intend  their  lives 
on  massing  money,  the  raiment  is  more  than 
the  body,  the  life  more  than  the  meat. 


But  perhaps  the  most  successful  lure  in 
the  chase  for  mammon  is  the  fact  that  it 
teaches,  or  at  least  impresses,  that  a  man's 
life  does  consist  in  the  abundance  of  the 
things  which  he  possesseth.  Hardly  can 
there  be  any  question  about  that.  And  there 
can  be  as  little  question  about  this  either,  that 
it  is  not  true.  A  man's  life  does  not  consist 
in  the  abundance  of  the  things  which  he  pos- 

125 


Earthly  Discords. 

sesseth,  and  true  success  is  not  mercantile. 
A  contradiction,  but  herein  lies  the  strange 
treachery  of  the  thing.  Riches  gives  more 
clothes,  but  somehow  you  are  colder;  more 
bread,  but  one  is  strangely  hungrier;  tantalus- 
like you  stand  chin-deep  in  water  which 
recedes  whenever  you  attempt  to  drink. 

It  was  in  the  days  when  Athens  was  in  her 
glory  that  the  critic  said  to  the  sculptor,  "Ah, 
you  have  loaded  down  your  goddess  with 
ornaments  because  you  could  not  make  her 
beautiful,"  and  multitudes  there  are  to-day 
who  are  crowding  and  weighting  their  lives 
with  worldly  treasures  thinking  thereby  to 
make  them  happy  and  attractive.  To  all 
such  the  old  Homeric  tale  of  the  sheep  on 
the  verge  of  the  cliff  comes  with  fresh  and 
forceful  freshness.  A  few  yards  below  there 
hung  a  level  shelf  covered  with  verdure. 
Thoughtless,  it  leaped  down.  Thereunder  a 
second  shelf  loomed  large  and  vital.  Then 
the  story  tells  about  a  third  shelf  and  a  fourth 
and  a  fifth,  and  then  the  usual  sequel  about 
hunger,  helplessness,  and  the  eagles. 

Some  months  ago  the  daily  press  interested 
us  with  an  interview  that  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Con- 
nor, the  English  M.  P.,  had  with  Mr.  Car- 
126 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

negie.  "As  we  drove  to  the  station  I  was 
remarking  how  I  envied  him  his  wealth." 
He  said,  'I  am  not  to  be  envied.  How  can 
my  wealth  help  me?  I  am  sixty  years  old, 
and  I  cannot  digest  my  food.  I  would  give 
all  my  millions  if  I  could  have  youth  and 
health. '  Then  I  shall  never  forget  his  next 
remark.  We  had  driven  some  yards  in 
silence  when  Mr.  Carnegie  suddenly  turned, 
and  in  hushed  voice  and  with  bitterness  and 
depth  of  feeling  quite  indescribable,  said,  'If 
I  could  make  Faust's  bargain  I  would.  I 
would  gladly  sell  anything  to  have  my  life 
over  again. ' 

"And  I  saw  his  hand  clinch  as  he  spoke." 
Surely  no  lesson  needs  stressing  more  in 
these  feverish  days  than  the  pitiful  failure  of 
a  life  "whose  dominant  chord  is  the  distract- 
ing craze  for  gold. ' '  The  teacher  of  safe  and 
healthy  living  dare  not  keep  silent  on  this 
danger  else  be  false  to  his  trust.  It  is  the 
chief  jangle  in  life's  music.  The  vulgar 
sway  of  mammon  is  at  the  bottom  of  nearly 
all  our  jarring  and  unrest.  A  man's  life  does 
not  consist  in  the  abundance  of  things  which 
he  possesseth,  and  the  truest  seer  that  ever 
read  its  heart  never  said  so.  A  man's  life 
127 


Earthly  Discords. 

consists  in  the  number  of  noble  ideals  that 
possess  him.  A  man's  life  consists  in  the 
fulness  of  his  affections,  in  the  depth  of  his 
sympathies,  in  the  strength  of  his  faith,  in  the 
reach  of  his  hope,  in  the  purity  of  his  love. 
Will  the  good  Father  ask  rich  men  what  they 
did  with  their  money?  Methinks  it  will  be 
the  first  question.  May  a  rich  magnate  do 
as  he  pleaseth  with  his  possessions?  Not 
unless  he  pleaseth  to  do  what  is  right.  No 
soul  is  worthy  of  a  growing  fortune  who  does 
not  have  a  correspondingly  growing  liberality; 
but  the  man  whose  outlet  of  benevolence 
keeps  flowing — fully,  freely — that  man's 
wealth  is  a  blessing  to  society,  it  is  a  blessing 
to  his  fellow-men,  and  some  day  he  will  be 
surprised  to  learn  what  a  blessing  he  has 
made  of  it  to  himself. 

In  the  Paris  Salon  there  is  a  striking  pic- 
f  ture — the  death  of  William  the  Conqueror. 
The  soul  is  represented  as  having  just  taken 
its  flight,  and  the  servants  who  a  moment 
previous  would  have  leaped  to  answer  his 
every  nod,  are  robbing  his  wardrobe.  Under- 
neath is  written,  "William  the  Conqueror." 
Think  of  it!  Just  dead,  and  his  own  life- 
attendants  rummaging  for  booty!  What  a 
12S 


The  Noisy  Passion  for  Pelf. 

victory!  "What  a  failure"  rather,  would 
not  the  "Master  of  all  good  workmen"  say! 
For  the  man  who  does  not  own  a  penny,  but 
who  lives  daily  in  the  love  of  whatsoever 
things  are  true  and  noble  and  of  good  report, 
who  can  kneel  by  his  bedside,  clasp  his  wife 
and  little  boy  in  his  arms,  then  commit  them 
into  the  keeping  of  the  All-Seeing,  All-Lov- 
ing, and  sleep  as  soundly  as  his  curly  headed 
darling — that  man  is  the  true  conqueror,  the 
true  millionaire. 

The  child  of  a  King  is  he,  the  heir  of  the 
ages. 


129 


The  Great  Falsetto    Note    in    Mod- 
ern Society. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

The  Great  Falsetto    Note  in    Mod- 
ern Society. 

Along  the  line  of  our  last  chapter  all  has 
not  been  said. 

It  is  now  some  four  years  or  more  since 
we  paid  our  first  and  only  visit  to  Monte 
Carlo,  but  the  impressions  then  made  were  so 
deep  and  clear  cut  that  we  can  easily  define 
them  even  now. 

By  every  nature-lover  and  landscape-critic 
the  place  is  admitted  to  be  one  of  the  most 
charming  spots  in  Europe.  Monaco,  the 
principality,  is  situated  on  the  shores  of 
southern  France,  not  far  from  the  ancient 
city  of  Nice.  A  promontory  only  eight  miles 
square,  it  yet  has  a  king  of  its  own,  who,  it 
may  be  worth  noting,  is  absolute  monarch  and 
ruler.  The  population  of  the  little  kingdom 
cannot  be  more  than  fifteen  thousand  people, 
thus  showing  it  to  be  both  in  extent  and  in- 
habitants the  smallest  state  in  Europe.  The 
capital — a  little  town  of  four  thousand — occu- 
pies the  summit  of  a  rocky  headland  that  rises 

133 


Earthly  Discords. 

two  hundred  feet  or  more  sheer  from  the 
Mediterranean  shore  and  is  surrounded  by 
ramparts  of  stone  and  granite.  To  the  north- 
east but  just  a  Httle  loom  up  the  buildings  of 
the  Casino.  These  are  owned  by  a  joint  stock 
company,  and  capitalized  at  something  like 
five  million  dollars.  Of  the  buildings  them- 
selves the  first  stone  was  laid  in  1858,  and 
to-day  Paris  itself  can  hardly  boast  of  struc- 
tures more  magnificent. 

This,  then,  is  Monte  Carlo — goodly,  pic- 
turesque, pleasing  to  the  eye,  and  yet,  withal, 
the  world's  great  gambling  sore,  the  blot  on 
the  fair  name  of  southern  France.  No- 
where possibly  in  all  Europe  is  there  a  pros- 
pect lovelier;  nowhere  is  there  a  vision  viler. 
A  garden  of  glory  is  it,  but  a  garden  likewise 
of  death.  Here  the  blood  of  the  suicide  but 
stains  the  red  of  the  rose  to  a  deeper  dye. 
Under  every  leaf  there  coils  a  cobra,  beneath 
every  cluster  sleeps  a  corpse.  Ruben's  pic- 
ture of  the  crucifixion  has  been  criticised 
because  Golgotha  has  been  painted  so  attract- 
ively that  the  skull  cannot  be  seen  for  the 
flowers,  but  in  this  latest  Golgotha  skull  and 
flowers  lie  side  by  side.  Nothing  is  done  to 
l.ide  the  deformity.     If   the  heathen  conse- 

134 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

crate  shrines  to  serpents  and  adorn  the  croco- 
dile with  a  crown,  so  here  contempt  of  life  is 
invested  with  a  glamour  and  ignoble  death  with 
chivalry.  The  waters  of  the  great  tideless 
sea  wash  the  base  of  the  castle;  the  fragrance 
of  the  lemon  groves  scents  the  air  far,  far 
afield;  rarely  does  a  cloud  hide  the  sun  by 
day  or  the  crystal  purity  of  the  stars  by 
night;  the  strains  of  the  orchestra  are  never 
silent,  nor,  alas,  the  wail  of  the  dying. 

Aristotle  tells  us  of  the  Indian  princess 
sent  as  a  gift  to  his  pupil  Alexander  the 
Great.  She  was  the  loveliest  creature  in  all 
Illyricum,  but  having  been  fed  on  poisonous 
herbs  from  infancy,  her  very  breath  was  fatal. 
So  the  very  breath  of  this  goodly  garden  is 
death  to  noble  impulse.  Here  shielded  from 
the  law  millions  are  annually  paid  in  shame- 
ful rental.  Hither  flock  thousands  of  visitors 
daily  from  every  corner  of  the  Continent. 
Hither  hies  the  college  graduate  to  try  his 
luck  around  the  tempting  table.  Here  may 
be  seen  on  any  morning  of  the  year  Ameri- 
can millionaires,  Russian  noblemen,  London 
gentry,  Parisian  sports,  Italian  clerks,  and 
criminals  whose  features  grace,  or  shall  we 
not  rather  say  disgrace,  the  walls  of  every 

135 


Earthly  Discords. 

"rogues'  gallery"  in  Europe.  Here  para- 
mour and  courtezan  drink  their  wines  and 
rattle  their  dice  and  "shoot  their  gold  napo- 
leons. ' '  Not  an  evening  passes,  it  hath  been 
said,  but  some  "poor  unfortunate  weary  of 
breath"  descends  those  winding  marble  stair- 
ways, while  a  pistol-shot  forthwith  below  pro- 
claims the  sequel  and  the  tragic  end.  What 
a  tale  that  mention  tells! 

To  the  earnest  youth  busy  with  task  and 
tool  and  hearing  for  the  first  time  of  the  harm 
of  the  gambling  hazard,  it  must  be  accounted 
as  a  strange  thing  that  so  little  disorder  is 
seen  or  heard  at  Monte  Carlo  and  places  of 
like  tone.  One  hears  little  shouting,  little 
profanity,  sees  nothing  obscene,  nothing  in- 
decent. Perchance,  indeed,  a  whole  morning 
may  be  passed  in  the  walks  and  banqueting- 
rooms  without  even  the  faintest  tell-tale  of 
drink's  ravages  crossing  one's  stroll.  At  the 
cost  of  over  one  million  dollars  the  stockhold- 
ers some  years  ago  erected  a  cathedral  for 
religious  worship — thus  stealing  the  livery  of 
heaven  surely,  and  making  secure  in  stone 
history's  fittest  illustration  of  Satan  clothed 
as  an  angel  of  light.  Alas!  let  no  youth 
think  the  way  to  death  bleak  and  barren  and 
136 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

full  of  startling  screams  and  noisome  odors. 
Let  not  the  beauteous  child  of  tender  years 
suppose  the  footpath  dark  and  lonely  and 
through  passes  dangerous  and  fearful.  Truly 
indeed  "the  mountain  up  which  the  tempter 
takes  us  is  bathed  in  purple,  in  its  rocks 
gleam  jewels,  while  from  its  crest  is  seen  the 
vision  of  kingdoms. ' '  Facts  force  us  to  mark 
how  the  way  to  death  is  lighted  up  with  jets 
of  multi-colored  splendor.  No  hideous  skele- 
ton shocks  the  eye,  no  grating  note  offends 
the  nerve,  no  ravenous  beast  or  dragon 
crouches  by,  to  the  outward  eye  nothing  un- 
clean to  startle  or  disturb.  The  way  to  death 
is  carpeted  with  velvet  and  lined  with  bloom 
and  brilliancy.  The  opening  pathway  for  the 
hesitating  footsteps  of  the  blushing  youth 
winds  through  a  garden  in  which  the  flowers 
of  the  better  land  are  stolen.  Bewitching 
music  charms  the  ear;  tempting  fruits  tickle 
the  taste;  delicious  opiates  dull  the  sense. 
If  one  would  learn  somewhat  of  the  refine- 
ment and  seeming  innocence  of  the  gambling 
habit  he  need  but  wend  his  way  to  Monte 
Carlo.  Here  decked  out  in  silks  and  jewelry 
may  be  found  ladies  and  gentlemen  of  courtly 
dress    and    carriage  who   would    shudder   at 

'37 


Earthly  Discords. 

drunkenness  or  brutality  and  many  of  the 
coarser  sins.  Fruits  beautiful  to  the  eye  are 
they,  but  within  of  corruption  all  compact. 
Gaudy  creatures  of  the  vilest  tastes,  like  the 
Purple-Emperor  butterfly,  which  turns  aside 
from  the  sweet  juices  drawn  from  the  nectary 
of  the  narcissus  to  feed  on  putrid  animal  sub- 
stance. 

Our  wonder  grows  apace  as  we  linger 
around  this  school  of  scandal,  when  we  note 
the  preponderance  of  young  blood  loitering 
through  the  grooves,  for  age  is  but  poorly 
represented.  Gambling,  alas,  is  a  young  man's 
game,  requiring  the  riot  of  youth  to  feed  the 
flame.  There  are  no  old  gamblers,  it  hath 
been  noted  by  the  seer  of  olden  time.  In  an 
eloquent  passage  the  preacher  tells  us  of  the 
vessel  in  mid-ocean  that  exhausted  her  coal 
supply.  First  she  fed  her  cargo  to  the  fur- 
nace, then  the  masts  and  deck-castles,  then 
the  furniture,  tables,  beds,  chairs,  then  the 
timbers  and  [  inside  linings  of  the  hull,  till 
when  port  was  fortunately  gained  by  some 
favorable  wind,  she  was  naught  but  a  shell. 
So  doth  the  fire  of  this  deadly  fever  burn  up 
life's  precious  furnishings  till,  grown  old  and 
gray  at  forty,  the  despondent  victim  seeks  the 

138 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

rest  of  the  revolver  or  the  river.  For  as  luck 
has  been  called  the  gambler's  titular  deity,  so 
suicide  is  his  natural  end.  No  more  eloquent 
discourse  was  ever  heard  than  the  silent  ser- 
mon preached  by  the  suicide's  graveyard  at 
Monte  Carlo.  Thither  the  anxious  pilgrim 
wends  his  way  and  meets  old  Gilbert  at  the 
gateway  of  the  lonely  spot — Gilbert  the 
keeper,  Gilbert  the  gravedigger,  Gilbert  the 
atheist — eighty  years  of  age.  "Life  is  a 
game  of  chance,"  he  says.  "We  cannot 
rule  over  our  lives  any  more  than  we  can  rule 
over  the  ball  in  the  roulette.  If  I  am  to 
suffer  I  suffer;  if  I  am  to  be  glad  I  am  glad; 
when  I  am  to  die  I  die;  fate  is  my  God." 
Such  is  the  religion  of  Monte  Carlo. 

Sometimes  troubled  and  cast  .down  in 
soul,  when  the  congregation  has  scattered  and 
the  lights  are  out,  we  review  the  day's  work 
and  failure  and  wonder  at  the  little  impression 
our  words  have  made.  In  such  dark  moods 
we  exclaim,  "Verily  it  must  be  that  the  world 
is  growing  worse!"  Then  when  we  note  the 
madness  of  man  in  flinging  his  life  as  so  much 
firewood  to  the  furnace  of  passion  we  say, 
"Surely  some  specially  commissioned  evil 
genius  is  abroad   in  our  age  deceiving  if  it 

139 


Earthly  Discords. 

were  possible  the  very  elect."  But  these  are 
not  our  strong  hours,  certainly  not  our  best 
hours.  Ever  do  we  need  to  be  reminded 
that  no  new  unknown  visitor  is  sin.  Of  old 
did  the  prophet  say  that  sin  ''entered^'  into 
the  world,  in  the  which  he  speaks  of  the  dawn 
of  time.  Idolatry  and  theft  and  murder  and 
violating  the  Sabbath  day  were  the  master 
evils  under  the  Pharaohs,  and  they  are  the 
master  evils  now.  Betting,  let  us  hasten  to 
note,  is  not  a  twentieth-century  invention.  As 
old  as  profanity  is  it,  old  as  adultery,  old  as 
thievery.  Scholars  have  striven  to  trace  its 
beginnings,  but  in  vain.  Lost  are  they  in  the 
twilight  of  fable.  Does  not  Ruskin  inform 
us  that  in  mythology  the  gods  gambled?  And 
is  it  not  a  fact  reported  for  us  by  all  our  mis- 
sionaries that  no  savage  tribe  has  yet  been 
found  that  has  not  learned  the  secrets  of  the 
vicious  art?  John  G.  Paton,  in  his  autobiog- 
raphy, tells  us  that  in  all  his  travels  he  has 
never  met  an  adult  native  who  was  not  a  pro- 
ficient gambler,  while  as  far  back  as  the 
"Book  of  Historical  Documents  of  the  Chinese 
Race"  the  practice  is  mentioned.  Verily,  a 
relic  of  savage  darkness  doth  it  seem  to  be. 
Just  here  we  find  much  food  for  dark  fore- 
140 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

boding.  Our  wonder  and  amaze  would  not 
surprise  us  so  if  the  evil  were  confined  to-day 
to  the  lower  strata  of  society.  The  ominous 
fact  is,  that  it  pervades  the  whole  economy  of 
our  human  movement — business  life,  political 
life,  social  life,  alas,  church  life! — for  every- 
body indulges,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and 
unlearned,  members  of  the  church  and  mem- 
bers of  the  stock  exchange.  Even  society 
will  not  meet  of  an  afternoon  to  play  a  game 
of  cards  without  some  "seasoning  to  make  it 
spicy — a  ripple  on  the  social  board  of  trade"; 
thus  contributing  the  saddest  chapter  to  the 
pernicious  story,  for  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  society  to-day  is  preparing  the  youth  of 
our  land  for  a  fearful  harvest  on  the  morrow. 
When,  but  a  few  months  since,  our  late  la- 
mented President  lay  adying,  we  took  up  our 
morning  daily  and  saw  where  more  than  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  were  won  and  lost 
in  Chicago  on  the  hour  of  his  death.  Surely 
there  can  be  no  fascination  like  unto  that 
which  causes  sport  and  play  over  the  life  of 
those  we  love.  When,  for  instance,  some 
years  ago  we  read  where  a  well-known  sport- 
ing man  wagered  ten  thousand  dollars  on  the 
chances  of  his  child's  recovery  how  we  were 
141 


Earthly  Discords. 

moved!  Betting  on  to-morrow's  weather  is 
bad,  but  betting  on  the  heart-action  of  wife 
and  child  and  sweet  babe  nigh  unto  death, 
who  can  begin  to  tell  the  shame,  the  solid 
apathy,  of  such  inhumanity?  Is  he  not  right 
who  calls  the  sport  the  "witch-craft  of  crime" 
— potent,  all-potent,  omnipotent? 

A  noted  critic  has  recently  written  an  essay 
in  defense  of  gambling.  "Gambling,"  he 
says,  "is  simply  a  disguised  system  of  pur- 
chase. One  buys  excitement  and  excitement 
is  needful  to  healthy  living. ' '  Clearly  no 
violation  of  any  of  the  Ten  Commandments 
but  would  be  vindicated  by  an  outlook  so 
partial  and  unfair.  Cannot  the  same  be  said 
of  duelling?  And  what  is  the  bet  but  the  duel 
in  the  realm  of  mammon?  If  duelling  may 
be  regarded  as  murder  by  mutual  arrange- 
ment, may  not  betting  be  defined  as  thievery 
by  each  party's  consent?  Thus  is  the  evil 
the  denial  of  all  industry  just  as  murder  is  the 
denial  of  all  life-sacredness.  For  gambling 
is  the  death  blow  to  lawful  toil.  Each  differ- 
ent duty,  task,  and  tool  becomes  tasteless. 
Honest  work  loses  its  spice  and  tang  and 
flavor.  Each  worthy  craft  and  calling  suffers 
in  proportion  as  men's  minds  are  fed  on  ex- 
142 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

citement.  This  also  is  how  it  destroys  the 
home,  for  home  is  the  refuge  of  repose. 
Home  is  God's  giftof  restto  His  tired  children. 
Home  means  freedom  from  life's  fitful  fever. 

Home  is  the  place  to  unwind  and  relax  the 
highly  strung  instrument  of  nervous  care. 
Home  means  life's  little  nest  of  calmness  and 
soothing  quiet  for  mind  and  heart,  just  as 
sleep  is  nature's  sweet  restorer  for  the  body. 
And  the  sorrowful  tragedy  of  the  betting 
habit  is  that  "home  becomes  a  jail  to  its  vic- 
tim." Love  of  excitement  displaces  love  of 
wife  and  babe  and  sweet  boy. 

This  makes  clear,  furthermore,  how  it 
comes  to  be  the  lasting  companion  of  every 
other  indulgence  that  poisons  the  well-springs 
of  life.  Lust  is  a  base  debauch,  but  once 
appeased  there  follows  temporary  recoil. 
How  debasing  is  drink!  how  demeaning! 
how  low!  But  drink  at  a  certain  point  makes 
for  nausea  and  loathing.  Drink,  for  many, 
dulls  the  luster  of  the  eye  and  rocks  into  self- 
helplessness.  But  with  gambling  the  fever 
never  cools,  never  leaves;  like  unto  a  veri- 
table furnace  does  the  mind  become.  Win- 
ning or  losing  it  is  the  same.  It  may  be 
doubted,  indeed,  which  is  the  greater  stimu- 

H3 


Earthly  Discords. 

lant,  success  or  failure.  No  point  is  reached 
where  the  brain  is  dulled  as  by  some  narcotic 
and  thrown  back  insensibly.  While  the  fuel 
lasts  the  fire  burns  and  blazes,  and  alas,  in 
memory  after. 

Oh,  all  ye  who  love  home  and  church  and 
boy  and  girl  and  fatherland,  would  you  leam 
somewhat  of  the  enormity  and  peril  of  this 
soul-wrecking  evil?  Hear  the  warning  be- 
ware of  Jerry  MacAuley,  who  tells  us  that 
in  his  fifteen  years'  work  in  the  Bowery,  the 
professional  gamblers  he  has  seen  saved  could 
be  counted  on  his  fingers.  How  low  must 
human  nature  be  when  the  Gospel  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  fails  to  find  it!  No  indulgence 
will  so  quickly  destroy  self-respect.  None 
will  so  speedily  unsettle  the  mind  and  wreck 
the  body  and  destroy  the  soul.  Does  some 
innocent  child  of  tender  years  claim  that  there 
are  honest  gamblers?  In  answer  let  us  quote 
the  sage  of  Concord,  that  "fruit  is  always  ripe 
before  it  is  rotten. ' '  The  testimony  of  one 
of  New  York  City's  greatest  graduates  in  this 
vile  art  at  any  rate  should  suffice,  a  man  who 
confessed  to  having  won  sixty  thousand  dol- 
lars in  one  night  of  evil  debauch.  It  was 
given  before  the  ministerial  union  of  Manhat- 
144 


The  Great  Falsetto  Note  in  Society. 

tan.  Before  that  venerable  body  this  man 
affirmed  that  in  all  his  wild  career  he  had 
never  met  an  honest  gambler  who  played  a 
perfectly  straight  game.  The  evil  is  essen- 
tially dishonest.  It  is  a  system  of  ethics 
built  on  a  false  conception  of  ownership. 
This  is  our  arch-indictment;  wealth  is  a 
sacred  trust,  not  a  toy  to  sport  and  trifle  with. 
It  destroys  the  mind;  it  pollutes  the  heart;  it 
inflames  the  passions;  it  puts  the  stigma  on 
honest  industry;  it  wrecks  the  home,  than 
which  no  impeachment  could  be  graver. 
Home  is  the  comer-stone  of  church  and  state, 
and  anything  that  knocks  the  underpinning 
from  underneath  this  divine  altar  is  wrong 
and  wicked,  and  in  condemnation  thereof 
nothing  more  is  needed. 

"Dark  is  the  night,  how  dark!  no  light!  no  fire! 
Cold  on  the  hearth  the  last  faint  sparks  expire; 
Shivering  she  watches  by  the  cradle  side 
For  him  who  pledged  her  love  last  year  a  bride. 

"Can  he  desert  me  thus?     He  knows  I  stay 
Night  after  night  in  loneliness  to  pray 
For  his  return,  and  yet  he  sees  no  tear — 
No !  No  I    It  cannot  be !    He  will  be  here. 

"Nestle  more  closely  dear  one  to  my  heart! 
Thou'rt  cold!  Thou'rt  freezing!  But  he  will  not  part! 
Husband,  I  die !     Father,  it  is  not  he ! 
O  God,'protect  my  child !     The  clock  strikes  three. 

M5 


Earthly  Discords. 

'They're  gone,  they're  gone !     The  glimmering  spark 

hath  fled. 
The  wife  and  child  are  numbered  with  the  dead. 
On  the  cold  earth  outstretched  in  solemn  rest, 
The  baby  lay  frozen  on  its  mother's  breast. 
The  gambler  came  at  last,  but  all  was  o'er; 
Dead  silence  reigned  around.  The  clock  struck  four." 


146 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Young   Man   Out  of  Tune. 

"The  Lord  let  the  house  of  a  beast  to  the  soul  of  a  man, 
And  the  man  said,  'Am  I  your  debtor?' 
The  Lord  said,  'No;  but  keep  it  as  clean  as  you  can 
And  I  will  let  you  a  better." — Tennyson. 

David  king  of  Israel  had  four  sons — Solo- 
mon, Amnon,  Adonijah,  and  Absalom — and 
not  one  of  them,  if  the  strange  truth  must  be 
confessed,  was  a  credit  to  his  father.  In 
Solomon  we  have  the  curious  mingling  of  wis- 
dom and  folly;  Amnon  was  guilty  of  one  of 
the  foulest  crimes  that  can  stain  the  human 
heart;  Adonijah  was  a  usurper;  Absalom  a 
murderer.  A  bad  child  was  he,  a  bad  youth, 
a  bad  man,  and  still  his  father  loved  him. 
He  was  very  handsome,  we  are  told,  and  we 
are  also  told  that  his  beautiful  head  of  hair 
when  cut  every  year  weighed  two  hundred 
shekels;  i.  e.,  about  thirty  ounces.  The 
story  of  how  he  rebelled  against  his  father's 
throne  and  had  himself  proclaimed  king  at 
Hebron  by  the  people,  and  of  how  he  then 
marched  toward  Jerusalem  with  his  army  to 
149 


Earthly  Discords. 

take  possession  of  the  capital  and  the  throne, 
is  an  old  familiar  story;  and  the  Journal  of 
the  Father's  hearing  of  his  approach  and 
fleeing  from  the  city  accompanied  by  his 
family  and  his  famous  body-guard  of  six  hun- 
dred men,  and  proceeding  toward  the  Jordan, 
is  likewise  well-known  and  thrilling  narrative. 
There  is  perhaps  no  single  day  in  the  whole 
record  of  Jewish  history  so  completely  ful- 
filled as  that  which  describes  this  memorable 
flight.  David  is  pursued.  The  two  armies 
meet  in  the  forest  of  Ephraim.  and  then  the 
battle — and  what  a  battle! 

Father  forced  to  fight,  or  rather  to  defend 
himself,  against  the  son;  the  son  deliberately 
turning  against  the  father.  Twenty  thousand 
men  are  slain.  Absalom  is  defeated.  Rid- 
ing off  the  field  on  horseback,  his  beautiful 
head  of  hair  is  knotted  in  the  boughs  of  a 
huge  oak  and  he  is  dragged  from  the  stirrup 
and  is  hanged.  So  sharp  and  graphic  is  the 
record  that  we  can  almost  see  King  David 
standing  at  the  gate  of  the  city  waiting  for 
tidings  of  the  battle,  and  as  he  sees  a  messen- 
ger running  toward  him  with  news  from  the 
front,  he  cries  out  in  breathless  excitement, 
not  "Is  the  battle  won?" — he  seems  not  to 

150 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

have  cared  so  much  for  that.  He  cries  out, 
the  rather,  "Is  the  young  man  Absalom 
safe?"  And  when  the  sad  story  is  told  the 
father  weeps,  "Oh,  my  son  Absalom!  my  son, 
my  son  Absalom!  would  God  I  had  died  for 
thee!     Oh,  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son!" 


There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  words  of 
this  sorrowful  refrain  contain  more  than  a 
literal  meaning.  This  tale  about  a  wayward 
youth  was  not  inserted  in  the  inspired  Testa- 
ment as  mere  history.  A  deeper  truth  by  far 
than  that  does  it  hold  in  its  ample  and  far- 
reaching  content.  Forever  it  must  loom  as 
the  lighthouse  on  the  rock,  with  its  red  warn- 
ing writ  in  flame  of  fire,  "Beware!"  In- 
tended is  it  to  teach  us  that  there  are  Absa- 
loms  to-day  who  rebel  against  their  father's 
God  and  their  mother's  God,  and  wander  into 
the  far  country,  careless  of  everything — care- 
less of  body,  careless  of  soul — and  run  life's 
short  but  sure  career.  And  it  is  especially 
intended  to  teach  all  Christian  parents  who 
profess  the  name  of  Christ  to  take  measures 
for 'the  safety  of  their  children,  else  they,  too, 
be  found  standing  at  the  door  of  the  home- 
stead and  crying  aloud  when  it  is  too  late, 


Earthly  Discords. 

"Oh,  my  son  Absalom!  my  son,  my  son 
Absalom!  would  God  I  had  died  for  thee! 
Oh,  Absalom!  my  son,  my  son!"  This 
surely  is  the  spiritual  burden  of  the  elegy. 
How  we  are  reminded  of  the  New  Testament 
prodigal!  May  it  not  well  be  called  the  Old 
Testament  version  of  the  Master's  matchless 
parable?  For  both  wandered  from  home  and 
both  partook  of  the  same  Circean  draught. 
Already  we  noted  how  sin  at  heart  is  lawless- 
ness. Here  the  lawlessness  breaks  out  in 
open  mutiny,  for  each  listened  to  the  voice  of 
the  tempter  as  he  bade  them  to  insurrect 
against  a  loving  father's  will.  That  there  are 
a  few  catching  melodies  that  come  with  pecu- 
liar fascination  to  the  ears  of  young  men  must 
seem  so  evident  as  to  be  scarcely  needing 
statement.  Darwin  tells  us  that  but  few  ani- 
mals can  be  caught  twice  in  the  same  trap. 
Not  so  our  young  men!  With  one  or  two  of 
the  old  songs,  alas,  Satan  keeps  enticing  our 
youth  aside,  as  in  the  Homeric  myth  the 
Sirens  lured  the  sailors  on  the  rocks  and  vio- 
lated them.  But  such  strains  are  discords  to 
the  ear  trained  to  spiritual  tones.  Hearing 
the  new  song  of  redemption,  the  siren  voice 
of  the  tempter  soon  loses  its  charm.     That 

152 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

man  alone  is  safe  who  takes  the  wax  of 
worldliness  from  out  his  ear  and  tunes  his 
heart  to  the  heavenly  harmonies  of  our  Divine 
Orpheus.  Then  alone  is  he  proof  against 
the  beverage  of  Circe  or  the  music  of  the 
mermaids.  For  then  doth  he  hear  better 
music  reverberating  daily  in  his  soul,  and 
sweeter. 


I.  No  young  man  is  safe  who  plays  with 
his  body.  True,  the  body  is  only  dust,  but 
what  an  interesting  lump  of  dust!  The  eye 
a  text-book  on  geometry;  the  nervous  system 
a  treatise  on  telegraphy;  the  joints  and  mus- 
cles a  standard  work  on  mechanism!  Of  old 
the  philosopher  challenged  his  class  to  find  a 
happier  location  for  any  one  of  the  twenty- 
five  principal  organs  of  the  human  anatomy 
than  the  place  in  which  it  is  found.  We 
study  the  backbone.  We  note  the  perfection 
of  its  skill,  "firm  as  a  pillar,  flexible  as  a 
chain,  light  in  weight,  graceful  in  form. ' '  Six 
million  nerves  and  muscles  in  every  square 
inch  of  the  human  face!  Six  hundred  million 
cells  in  what  we  call  the  brain!  Strange  that 
in  these  days  of  enlightenment  men  should 
trifle  with  so  delicate    a  masterpiece!     Far 

153 


Earthly  Discords. 

aback  as  history  takes  us  the  ancients  rever- 
enced it,  the  highest  ambition  of  an  Egyptian 
being  to  leave  a  sufficiency  when  he  died  that 
it  might  be  embalmed.  Surely  the  youth  who 
gives  to  his  body  other  than  the  very  best  care 
is  entitled  to  any  nickname  in  the  lexicon  of 
folly.  For  health  is  the  stepping-stone  to 
happiness,  to  usefulness.  Some  Adam  Smith 
may  publish  a  work  upon  the  "Wealth  of 
Nations"  with  never  a  word  in  it  as  to  the 
health  of  nations,  but  this  is  much  as  though 
one  were  to  write  a  treatise  on  jurisprudence 
with  the  Ten  Commandments  left  out,  or  a 
dissertation  on  music  with  the  octave  ignored. 
The  human  body  has  been  called  the  finished 
poem  of  the  Great  Author.  Neglect  of  it  is 
a  blot  on  any  curriculum.  To  keep  the  soul's 
dwelling  in  good  working  order,  this  is  the 
first  duty  of  the  religious  man.  Pascal's 
theory  that  to  be  pious  one  must  starve  him- 
self and  be  pale  no  longer  obtains.  Tall, 
sickly,  spiritual  shadows  are  not  wanted  any- 
where to-day  save  in  the  sanatorium.  Im- 
agine Ulysses  or  Hector  or  the  Cyclops  an 
oarsman  in  a  rotten  boat.  A  kind  Provi- 
dence surely  could  not  have  intended  the 
drama  of  life  to  be — first  thirty  years  health 

154 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

hunting  wealth,  second  thirty  years  wealth 
hunting  health.  At  one  of  our  commence- 
ment exercises  last  spring  a  certain  class  cele- 
brated its  tenth  anniversary.  A  review  of  the 
decade  elicited  the  sad  surprise  that  fifty- 
seven  men  had  graduated  in  that  class,  of 
whom  but  ten  are  now  living.  Is  it  unjust  to 
say  that  there  must  be  some  false  note  in  the 
teaching  of  these  scholastic  halls. -•  True, 
sickness  is  ofttimes  but  a  reflection  on  a  young 
man's  prudence,  often  indeed  a  tribute  to  his 
life  of  sacrifice  and  devotion,  yet  'tis  also  true 
that  not  infrequently  also  it  is  a  stigma  on  his 
moral  character.  Seriously  and  in  all  con- 
science it  must  be  confessed  that  some  of  us 
hold  it  as  the  wickedest  foul  play  that  when 
we  sat  at  the  feet  of  the  wise  men,  none  of 
them  thought  it  worth  their  while  to  tell  us 
the  part  our  body  was  about  to  play  in  life's 
greater  curriculum.  As  some  one  notes,  we 
were  told  the  pathway  of  the  Pleiads  and  all 
about  the  moons  of  Jupiter  just  as  though 
they  were  in  danger  of  losing  their  course, 
but  of  ourselves — who  are  in  danger  every 
moment  of  swinging  off — never  a  word.  In 
blissful  blindness  were  we  left  to  find  that  out 
by  tear  and  tilt  and  tumble.     Whenever  a 

J  55 


Earthly  Discords. 

Southerner  is  asked  as  to  his  health,  he  re- 
plies, "Just  tolerable."  No  youth  of  pride 
and  promise  can  do  his  best  who  is  "Just 
tolerable, ' '  and  every  young  lover  of  honesty 
owes  it  to  the  world  to  do  his  best.  Southey 
tells  us  that  the  Cid,  the  national  hero  of 
Spain,  had  such  an  overflow  of  warm,  rich 
blood  that  he  could  lie  with  a  leper  and  not 
contract  the  disease.  Only  smallpox  and 
bullets,  'tis  said,  kills  the  Mohawk  Indian. 
With  these  compare  the  forty-seven  youths 
afore  mentioned  who  within  ten  years  after 
graduation  died  of  old  age  in  the  thirties. 
And  let  us  take  to  heart  the  lesson  that  no 
child  of  immortality  can  afford  to  play  with 
this  wondrous  temple  of  wisdom  and  beauty 
and  grace.  For  the  gospel  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
glorifies  the  body.  It  is  not  vile  and  never 
once  does  the  Bible  say  so.  The  habitation 
is  it  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is  to  be  raised 
from  the  dead.  It  is  to  be  clothed  upon  with 
immortality.     Keep  it  clean. 


2.    No  young  man  is  safe  who  plays  with 

his  life.      For  life  is  something  surpassingly 

serious,  and  he  who  trifles  with  it  and  treats 

it  as  an  idle  game  of  battledore  or  bagatelle 

156 


The  Young  Man  Out  ot  Tune. 

must  some  evil  day  smart  for  the  neglect. 
Full  oft  this  assumes  the  revolting  pessimism 
of  some  Khayydm  who  would  make  of  life 
an  idle  lottery. 

"We  are  no  other  than  a  moving  row 
Of  magic  shadow-shapes,  that  come  and  go 
Round  with  this  sun-illumined  lantern,  held 
In  midnight  by  the  Master  of  the  Show. 

"Impotent  pieces  of  the  game  he  plays 
Upon  this  checker-board  of  nights  and  days; 
Hither  and  thither  moves,  and  checks  and  slays, 
And  one  by  one  back  in  the  closet  lays." 

Perhaps  our  Puritan  elders  in  attempting 
to  curb  the  youthfulness  of  youth  made  life 
grim-visaged  and  over  serious,  for  in  protest- 
ing strongly  against  all  Catholic  leanings,  they 
unwittingly  glorified  a  type  of  penance  them- 
selves, therein  fulfilling  the  old  adage  that  not 
infrequently  extremes  do  meet.  Play  these 
sturdy  pilgrims  denounced  in  all  its  forms; 
and  in  some  places  still,  with  sorrow  let  it  be 
confessed,  their  intolerant  spirit  lags  and  lin- 
gers. Many  there  be  to-day  who  would  cry 
down  all  pastime  and  diversion;  the  ethic  of 
innocent  amusement  they  seem  not  to  regard; 
the  billiard-table  they  would  blacklist,  the 
bowling  alley,  the  golf  link,  the  tennis  court, 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  ball  game.  Each  Epworth  League  and 
each  Endeavor  army  they  would  have  dressed 
in  drab  and  slowly  sauntering  down  the  avenue 
to  the  strains  of  some  funeral  march.  But 
this  surely  defeats  the  high  end  of  Christian 
rejoicing  for  which  all  young  hearts  plead  and 
pine.  Life's  greatest  seers  and  sages  have 
found  time  for  festival  and  frolic.  Mission- 
aries like  Coleridge  Pattison  have  distinguished 
themselves  on  the  cricket  field,  and  ministers 
like  Robert  Speer  have  not  thought  it  sacri- 
lege to  play  ball.  "Any  type  of  raven  reli- 
gion is  a  repelling  religion."  Youth  will 
have  none  of  it.  Too  black  its  wings  to 
tempt  young  hearts  to  the  heavenly  flight, 
for  all  are  pleasure-seekers;  and  it  should  be 
the  aim,  we  are  constrained  to  believe,  of 
each  true  church  to  provide  wholesome  relax- 
ations for  the  fold  of  her  care. 

Of  old  the  famous  Frenchman  remarked, 
"Play,  but  play  with  the  right  things;  play 
with  thy  limbs  not  thy  life;  play  not  with 
powder.  Form  a  purpose,  then  fix  it." 
And  herein  surely  lies  the  victory.  Emer- 
son, when  asked  how  to  make  the  most  of 
one's  self,  replied,  "Have  one  idea."  Not 
purpose  but  singleness  of  purpose  is  the  secret 
15S 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

of  success.  "To  keep  a  gun  from  scattering, 
put  in  a  single  shot."  The  apostle  adds, 
' '  One  thing  I  do. "  Ours  is  an  age  of  special- 
ists. Recently  a  learned  professor  passed 
from  us,  regretting  that  he  had  not  devoted 
his  whole  life  to  the  study  of  the  dative  case. 
"Science  is  boring  everlasting  gimlet  holes," 
says  Dr.  Patton.  "Non  multa  sed  multum" 
is  the  college  motto.  And  doth  not  the 
motto  seem  a  v^rise  one?  Is  it  not  worth 
hanging  in  every  store,  every  office,  every 
workshop?  Few  things  more  valuable  to  a 
young  man  in  life  than  the  pressure  of  a  pur- 
pose! It  has  a  negative  value,  for  it  keeps 
from  drifting,  and  a  drifting  boat  always  drifts 
down  stream;  it  hath  a  positive  value,  for  it 
focuses  power;  and  "concentration,"  said  Sir 
Isaac  Newton,  "is  the  essence  of  strength." 
"The  light  of  the  body  is  the  eye;  if,  there- 
fore, thine  eye  be  single,  thy  whole  bodv  shall 
be  full  of  light;  but  if  thine  eye  be  double, 
thy  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  darkness." 
Light  is  lineal;  darkness  is  dual.  Single  men 
are  singular  men;  they  crash  through  impedi- 
ments with  the  earnestness  of  gunpowder. 
Ofttimes  the  boat  race  is  won,  not  by  superior 
straining,   but  by  superior  steering.      Rarely 

159 


Earthly  Discords. 

does  the  derelict  find  an  accidental  harbor. 
"Sheet  lightning  does  little  damage;  it  is  the 
bolt  that  kills."  "Be  a  magnetic  needle," 
said  Carlyle.  Look  straight  ahead.  Do  not 
circle,  but  steer.  Point.  A  life  without  a 
purpose  has  been  compared  to  a  letter  with- 
out an  address.  It  is  stamped,  sealed,  and 
mailed,  but  it  lacks  the  element  of  direction; 
it  will  go  to  the  dead-letter  office  of  defeat. 
It  mattereth  not  how  much  wealth  the  child 
of  fortune  claims,  he  has  no  right  to  be  idle; 
no  right  to  play  with  his  life.  Idleness  is 
treason  to  the  King's  government. 

"No  child  is  born  into  this  world 
Whose  work  is  not  born  with  him." 

Of  late  we  have  been  interested  in  the  life 
of  Cecil  Rhodes.  He  was  the  son  of  a  clergy- 
man. Going  to  South  Africa,  a  poor  boy  in 
search  of  health,  he  became  swayed  by  a 
master  motive — the  painting  of  the  Dark  Con- 
tinent British  red.  An  empire  builder  was 
he — "a  Titan  pitching  quoits  with  worlds." 
Much  of  his  great  career  was  selfish  and  un- 
worthy, but  all  must  admire  his  steady  passion 
for  a  purpose.  Never  once  did  he  fritter 
away  his  life;  never  once  trifle  his  time. 

1 60 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

3.  No  young  man  is  safe  who  plays  with 
his  passions.  Not  that  there  is  anything  un- 
worthy in  our  passions;  our  passions  are  God- 
given.  The  passion  for  food,  for  drink,  for 
dress,  for  praise,  for  beauty,  for  truth,  for 
love.  How  noble  these  heart-hungerings! 
How  excellent!  How  sterling!  Only  when 
we  begin  to  play  with  them  and  run  them  to 
riot  do  they  lose  their  luster  and  become  base 
metal.  Fire  is  a  good  servant.  What  bless- 
ings it  doth  bring!  What  bliss!  How  it 
purifies!  How  it  gladdens!  Comfort  it  lends 
to  the  home,  light  and  cheer  to  the  weary. 
But  how  cruel  a  master!  How  merciless  its 
empire!  Water.  What  greater  blessing  than 
water?  What  were  life  without  water! 
Without  water  life  could  not  be.  Surely, 
like  bread.  Swift  might  have  said,  it  is  the 
staff  of  life;  rendering  commerce  possible, 
cleansing  our  defilements,  cooling  our  over- 
heated frame,  quenching  our  overburning 
thirst.  But  water  unchained,  unchecked,  how 
ruthless!  how  relentless!  Never  perhaps 
was  the  play  of  passion  painted  so  richly 
and  highly  colored  as  by  Burns,  but  his  own 
sad  epitaph  is  the  best  commentary  on  the 
painting: 

161 


Earthly  Discords. 

"Is  there  a  whim-inspired  fool, 
Owre  fast  for  thought,  owre  hot  for  rule, 
Owre  blate  to  seek,  owre  proud  to  snool, 

Let  him  draw  near; 
And  owre  this  grassy  heap  sing  dool. 

And  drap  a  tear. 

"Is  there  a  man  whose  judgment  clear. 
Can  others  teach  the  course  to  steer, 
Yet  runs  himself  life's  mad  career 

Wild  as  the  wave; 
Here  pause— and  through  the  starting  tear, 

Survey  this  grave." 

If  ever  there  was  a  singer  who  sang  the 
songs  of  the  flesh  it  was  the  German  poet 
Heine.  But  the  historian  notes  how  his  seven 
long  years  on  what  he  himself  called  his  "mat- 
tress grave,"  his  excruciating  sufferings,  his 
softening  of  the  spinal  cord,  his  opium  crav- 
ing, is  the  most  pathetic  illustration  of  the 
after-bite  of  the  serpent  and  the  after-sting  of 
the  adder.  Does  some  one  then  ask,  "What 
shall  I  do  with  these  passions  mine?"  Keep 
them  in  check.  Learn  the  dignity,  the  glory, 
of  self-control.  Self-knowledge,  self-rever- 
ence, self-control,  these  are  the  steps  to  the 
citadel  of  safety. 

There  is  an  old  saying  attributed  to  Luther, 
"We  cannot  prevent  the  birds  of  paradise 
flying  over  our  heads,  but  we  can  prevent 
163 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

their  nesting  in  our  hair, ' '  to  which  another 
shrewd  divine  adds,  "The  colored  boy  who 
looks  through  the  fence  at  a  row  of  water- 
melons cannot  stop  his  mouth  from  watering, 
but  he  can  run."  And  in  running,  let  us 
add,  he  will  find  his  limbs  grow  steady  and 
his  heart  grow  strong. 

Quite  recently  a  religious  review  was  tell- 
ing us  of  a  man  who  was  sentenced  to  jail  last 
winter  in  a  police  court  in  Boston.  Dressed 
was  he  like  a  rowdy,  and  yet  this  man  was  at 
one  time  governor  of  a  Southern  state.  He 
was  the  only  son  of  wealthy  parents.  His 
father  was  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  South  Carolina.  The  mother  in  her  girl- 
hood was  a  distinguished  beauty.  Less  than 
thirty  years  ago  the  man  was  tall,  stately, 
kingly,  eloquent,  wealthy,  charming.  Going 
into  the  Civil  War,  he  came  out  with  medals. 
To-day  his  picture  hangs  in  the  rogue's  gal- 
lery. On  being  placed  behind  the  bars,  he 
used  these  words:  "I  am  but  fifty-eight  years 
old,  but  look  at  me!  My  hair  is  white,  my 
skin  is  browned  and  seasoned,  my  cheeks  are 
hollowed,  my  frame  is  shrunken,  my  hands 
palsied  like  a  man  of  eighty.  Opium  and 
morphine,  the  twin  curses  of  my  life,  were  not 
16:1 


Earthly  Discords. 

content  with  undermining  my  health;  they 
attacked  my  mind  and  my  moral  nature;  they 
led  me  to  do  things  that  in  my  right  sense  I 
abhor  as  I  do  murder.  They  are  not  mere 
drugs  to  me;  they  are  two  grinning,  pursuing, 
avenging  sprites,  besetting  me  at  every  turn. 
It  is  years  since  I  tasted  either,  but  the  work 
of  destruction  they  began,  all  the  forces  of 
nature,  disease,  and  approaching  age  have 
helped  to  carry  on. ' ' 

Years  ago  Mr.  De  Lesseps  devised  the 
idea  of  cutting  a  passage  through  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama.  The  project  failed.  To-day 
travelers  tell  us  that  a  trip  across  the  Isthmus 
is  pathetic;  machinery  rusting  and  falling 
away;  rotting  timbers  and  derricks  and  every 
mechanical  contrivance  in  a  state  of  collapse. 
A  sense  of  depression  steals  over  the  visitor. 
Three  hundred  millions  of  money  were  spent 
— but  there  is  no  canal.  Sights  like  unto  this 
there  are  in  life  all  around  us.  Such  is  the 
man  who  lets  his  passions  run  riot;  the  man 
who  fans  his  baser  feelings  into  flame;  the 
man  who  dulls  his  brain  with  some  stimulant 
or  narcotic;  the  man  who  makes  a  lifeless 
luggage  out  of  his  body.  Such  the  man  en- 
dowed with  a  divine  nature  and  immortal 
164 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

powers  who  prostitutes  this  splendid  inheri- 
tance to  coarse  and  carnal  ends.  How  piti- 
ful, how  sad! 

Walking  through  the  British  Museum  what 
a  mutilated  collection  of  vases  and  statues  and 
ancient  porcelain  greets  the  eye!  Here  is  the 
lower  part  of  an  Eg)'ptian  kneeling  figure 
with  the  knee  fractured;  here  is  a  Greek 
fictile  vase  with  one  of  the  handles  missing; 
here  are  the  remains  of  a  Roman  water-wheel; 
here  is  a  portion  of  an  Assyrian  sculptured 
slab,  chipped  and  cracked ;  here  is  an  eques- 
trian statue  of  the  Emperor  Caligula  with  both 
arms  gone;  here  is  a  statue  of  Apollo  playing 
the  lyre,  but  the  strings  have  snapped  and  the 
yoke  is  wanting;  here  is  a  broken  bust  of 
Athene,  with  head  and  draperies  restored  in 
plaster;  here  is  the  torso  of  a  Triton  in  high 
relief;  here  the  fragment  of  an  acroterion  with 
various  shattered  moldings.  Alas,  what  evi- 
dences of  devastation  and  waste  are  here! 
Traces  of  beauty  left  to  tell  us  that  some 
Phidiases,  some  Angelos,  some  Canovas  have 
once  visited  our  earth,  for  beautiful  even  are 
the  ruins.  Could  some  stranger  from  the 
better  land  come  to  visit  us  to-day,  it  hath 
been  noted  what  marred  models  he  would 
i6s 


Earthly  Discords. 

see;  homes  that  are  hells;  codes  and  ordi- 
nances that  are  infamous.  Here  is  some  in- 
human husband  beating  his  wife,  the  marriage 
certificate  once  a  symbol  of  love  and  liberty 
having  become  a  sentence  of  enslavement  and 
hate;  here  is  some  child  possessed  of  perfidy 
assailing  his  parent;  here  are  men  dealing  out 
to  their  fellow-men  the  drug  that  is  deadly 
and  that  turns  them  into  demons;  here  are 
youth  maiming  their  bodies;  here  hulls  of 
shattered  ships  strew  the  beach  of  life;  here 
are  fragments  in  fullness  of  broken  vows, 
closets  with  skeletons  therein;  immortal  souls 
redeemed  by  the  blood  of  Jesus  and  that  are 
still  precious  in  his  sight,  but  with  a  coating 
of  beastliness  upon  their  one-time  beauty. 
Here  prisons  our  visitor  would  see,  peniten- 
tiaries, hospitals,  asylums,  and  cemeteries  for 
the  dead;  sobs  he  would  hear  that  never  cease, 
like  the  endless  moaning  of  the  sleepless  tide. 
Verily  our  other-world  guest  might  well  say, 
"What  a  ruin!"  "What  a  splendid  ruin!" 
"Surely  the  Divine  Workman  himself  hath 
been  here  once,  and  just  as  surely  some 
enemy  must  have  entered  since  to  spoil  and 
undermine  his  work. ' ' 


1 66 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

4.  No  young  man  is  safe  who  plays  with 
the  world  of  chance.  More  than  once  already 
have  we  called  attention  to  this  deafening  dis- 
cord, but  it  hath  peculiar  enchantment  to  the 
audience  of  youth. 

Perhaps  there  is  nothing  to-day  that  carries 
with  it  more  danger  to  society  than  playing 
with  the  world  of  chance.  To-day  the  heart 
of  the  American  nation  is  burning  with  lust — 
the  lust  for  gold.  For  money  is  America's 
god.  Almost  outside  the  pale  of  debate  is 
that  statement.  The  passion  for  pelf  is  white- 
hot.  'Tis  more  than  a  passion,  alas!  'Tis 
a  disease.  The  American  people  are  money- 
drunk.  How  to  make  money!  how  to  make 
it  easily!  how  to  make  it  quickly!  This  is 
the  problem  and  playing  with  the  world  of 
chance  seems  the  popular  solution.  The  rage 
of  the  age  is  to  get  rich;  or  rather  the  rage  of 
the  age  is  to  get  very  rich.  In  Zeus  the 
world  hath  lost  all  faith,  lost  faith  in  Apollo, 
lost  faith  in  Athene,  lost  faith  in  Aphrodite, 
but  never  did  a  people  have  such  faith  in  any 
oracle  as  the  American  people  have  in  Mam- 
mon to-day,  and  yet  he  is  the  basest  god  that 
dwells  on  Olympus. 

Now,  like  the  sage  of  old  we  wage  no  war 
167 


Earthly  Discords. 

against  wealth,  we  defile  it  with  no  pollut- 
ing breath,  but  we  do  wage  war  against  this 
vulgar  crusade  to  the  altar  of  wealth.  "The 
feudalism  of  the  stocks  is  fully  as  wicked  as 
the  feudalism  of  the  sword."  The  pitiful 
paragraph  is  that  the  poor  little  hungry 
orphan  who  steals  a  loaf  of  bread  is  a  thief, 
while  the  hard-hearted  usurer  who  speculates 
on  the  tears  of  the  little  fellow's  mother  and 
sells  them  at  so  much  a  pennyweight  is  a 
shrewd  broker  on  the  exchange;  which  is 
false,  which  is  wicked,  which  is  blasphemous, 
which  indeed  at  heart  is  anarchy!  One  grave 
objection  to  playing  with  the  world  of  chance, 
let  us  hasten  to  observe,  is,  that  the  greatest 
things  in  life  are  gotten  slowly.  The  insect 
develops  one  day  and  dies  the  next;  the 
elephant  lives  almost  a  century  because  his 
maturity  is  postponed;  the  fly  is  born  full 
grown  in  a  day;  the  bird  asks  weeks  before 
it  learns  to  risk  its  wing;  few  the  years  be- 
tween the  colt  and  the  steed's  full  strength; 
but  when  God  calls  some  Moses  or  Milton  he 
starts  him  on  a  long  crusade.  It  has  been 
regarded  as  a  strange  fact  that  boys  who  gain 
honors  in  college  do  not  as  a  rule  succeed  in 
life.  Youthful  wonders  but  rarely  fulfil  their 
1 68 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

early  promise.  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan, 
Webster,  Greeley,  Beecher,  Scott  were  dull 
boys.  "Soon  ripe,  soon  rotten"  is  an  old 
proverb.  How  long  doth  nature  ask  to  make 
a  diamond?  Happy  question!  Something 
like  one  hundred  thousand  years.  Patience, 
the  poet  says,  changes  the  mulberry-leaf  to 
satin.  "Can't  wait"  is  the  voice  of  the  age. 
The  boy  chafes  to  become  a  youth,  the  youth 
to  become  a  man,  the  man  frets  under  his 
slow,  lagging  pace.  Society  is  out  hunting 
short  cuts  and  big  profits ;  and  yet  the  great- 
est things  grow  slowly.  Instance  Tennyson 
for  seventeen  years  laboring  ' '  In  Memoriam. ' ' 
Think  of  Webster  devoting  six  and  thirty 
years  to  a  dictionary,  or  a  Gibbon  a  full  score 
of  years  to  his  immortal  classic.  Witness 
George  Eliot  reading  one  thousand  volumes 
before  she  wrote  a  line  of  Daniel  Deronda. 
Verily,  each  sage  and  patriot  should  be  patient 
since  God's  century-plants  refuse  to  be 
hurried. 

While  some  labor  others  enter  into  the 
fruits  of  said  labors,  and  these,  after  all,  are 
the  labors  that  last,  for  the  longer  the  ripen- 
ing the  richer  the  harvest  and  the  less  liable 
to  mildew  and  life's  corroding  cankers.  Mr. 
169 


Earthly  Discords. 

Carnegie  has  quite  recently  pubHshed  a  book, 
entitled,  "The  Empire  of  Business."  One 
paragraph  is  worth  quoting  in  capitals: 
"When  I  was  a  telegraph  operator  we  had 
no  exchanges,  and  the  men  who  speculated  on 
the  Eastern  markets  were  necessarily  known 
to  the  operators.  These  men  were  not  our 
citizens  of  first  repute.  They  were  regarded 
with  suspicion.  I  have  lived  to  see  nearly  all 
these  speculators  ruined  men.  There  is 
scarcely  an  instance  of  a  man  who  has  made 
a  fortune  by  speculating  and  kept  it. "  O  all 
ye  young  hearts  of  earnest  but  ambitious  aim, 
whose  limitations  tend  to  vex  and  wound  thy 
spirits,  apt  many  of  you  to  grow  restive  under 
the  slowness  of  your  lowly  lots,  let  this  truth 
come  with  comforting  and  calming  sway,  that 
man  is  born  a  long  way  from  home  and  that 
we  are  saved  by  hope.  Be  thine  the  larger 
faith,  that  if  the  "Master  of  all  good  work- 
men" calls  thee  to  serve  him  as  a  banker, 
that  said  call  comes  as  a  business  overture, 
but  not  with  the  final  motive  of  amassing  gain. 
Into  the  banking  house  he  may  summon  thee 
and  great  may  be  the  gain  thereof.  If  so, 
well  and  good,  but  to  his  All-seeing  eye  no 
life  fulfils  its  primal  plan  that  lives  for  such  a 
170 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

low,  unworthy  aim  as  mammon.  "He  lives 
too  low  who  lives  below  the  stars."  Man- 
hood alone  is  the  true  riches,  the  imperishable 
wealth.  Make  thy  choice  'twixt  truth  and 
treachery,  'twixt  infidelity  and  faith.  Sign 
thy  name  to  no  compact  for  which  the  whitest 
saint  in  gloryland  may  not  be  a  voucher. 
Learn  the  value  of  the  invisible,  the  reality 
of  the  remote.  Study  to  show  thyself  ap- 
proved, a  workman  that  feeleth  no  shame  for 
the  humble  task,  the  lowly  service,  the  slow 
and  patient  part.  Thus  shalt  thou  find  the 
true  treasure,  the  enduring  substance,  which 
the  world  must  ever  fail  to  give  and  which  no 
change  can  ever  take  away. 


5.  No  young  man  is  safe  who  plays  with 
his  soul. 

Esau,  for  a  mess  of  pottage,  sold  his  birth- 
right, and  many  there  be  to-day,  we  fear,  who 
set  no  greater  value  upon  their  immortal  heri- 
tage. The  glory  of  man  is  his  spiritual  nature. 
The  horse  has  been  eating  grass  since  the 
days  of  Darius,  but  he  knows  no  more  about 
it  to-day  than  he  did  then,  but  the  horse's 
owner  has  unlocked  the  lips  of  every  blade 
that  bursts  and  every  bud  that  blooms,  and 


Earthly  Discords. 

made  each  tell  out  their  secret.  The  skylark 
sings  the  same  note  that  Ovid  and  Homer 
heard;  meanwhile  each  listening  poet  has 
poured  into  the  heart  of  the  world  a  flood  of 
harmony,  and  still  the  end  is  not.  "The  eye 
is  not  satisfied  with  seeing  nor  the  ear  with 
hearing."  "Heard  strains  are  sweet,  but 
those  unheard  are  sweeter."  Man  is  a  pil- 
grim in  search  of  a  city  out  of  sight.  The 
only  satisfying  solution  to  the  mystery  is  the 
solution  of  Holy  Writ.  What  may  that  solu- 
tion be?  This:  life  is  the  great  polytechnic. 
The  spiritual  is  the  real.  "We  are  building 
day  by  day  as  the  moments  pass  away,  a 
temple."  We  have  bodies;  we  are  souls; 
these  souls  are  homed  in  God;  never  will 
they  find   rest   until   they  reach  their  native 

dwelling. 

"Heaven  is  my  fatherland. 
Heaven  is  my  home." 

"Our  God,  our  help  in  ages  past. 
Our  hope  for  years  to  come, 
Our  shelter  from  the  stormy  blast, 
And  our  eternal  home." 

And    now  why   should    not    every  young 
heart  who  ponders  these  pages  be  a  Chris- 
tian?    Why  should  he  or  she  not  say  with  the 
old  divine,    "Jesus  Christ  has  no  hands  or 
172 


The  Young  Man  Out  of  Tune. 

feet  in  this  world;  I  will  give  him  mine.  He 
has  no  eyes;  I  will  give  him  mine.  He  has 
no  tongue  to  tell  his  excellence;  I  will  lend 
him  mine.  He  has  no  heart  to  love  and  melt 
with  pity;  here,  Lord,  mine." 

"My  life,  my  love,  I  give  to  thee. 
Thou  Lamb  of  God  who  died  for  me; 
Oh,  may  I  ever  faithful  be, 
My  Saviour  and  my  God." 

Mrs.  Ballington  Booth  tells  of  a  company 
of  good  women  whose  custom  was  to  go  down 
every  Sabbath  afternoon  into  the  Hartford 
jail  to  hold  a  service  of  song  for  the  prisoners. 
Among  these  good  sisters  of  charity  one  day 
was  a  strange  lady  who  had  heard  of  the  ser- 
vice and  had  asked  permission  to  accompany 
them.  One  by  one  the  prisoners  defiled  into 
the  room  and  took  their  seats.  The  leader 
arose  and  gave  out  the  hymn,  "Just  as  I  am 
without  one  plea. ' '  They  had  just  begun  the 
second  stanza  when  suddenly  the  visitor 
turned  pale  and  fainted.  Taken  out  into  the 
vestibule  she  revived  and  later  was  brought 
to  the  hotel.  On  being  asked  the  cause  of 
the  swoon,  she  replied,  "I  saw  my  boy;  he 
has  been  away  from  home  for  five  years,  and 
we  thought  he  was  out  West."     Some  one 

173 


Earthly  Discords. 

has  opinioned  that  the  widow's  son  laid  under 
the  turf  is  the  saddest  sight  in  life,  but,  oh, 
not  so,  not  so! 

To  see  a  young  man  play  with  his  body, 
play  with  his  life,  play  with  his  passions,  play 
with  the  world  of  chance,  play  with  liis  im- 
mortal heritage  and  trample  upon  it  as  a  little 
and  an  unworthy  thing;  to  see  him  turn  life's 
sweetest  strains  into  a  harsh  and  grating  dis- 
cord; to  see  him  turn  his  back  on  God  and 
Christ  and  home  and  mother  and  native  land 
— going  down,  down,  down  till  at  last  the 
depths  are  reached;  then  becoming  a  danger- 
ous outcast  so  that  the  law  must  needs  step 
in  and  call  for  fetters — surely  this  is  the  sad- 
dest sight  in  life.  Than  this  can  anything  be 
more  comfortless  or  grievous?  This  is  the 
spectacle  over  which  angels  weep.  This  is 
the  scene  that  led  to  David's  heartbreak. 
This  is  the  picture  of  a  lost  soul. 


174 


Strains  True  and   False  in  Our 
National  Anthem. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Strains  True  and   False   in   Our 
National  Anthem. 

A   THANKSGIVING   RETROSPECT. 
This  day  has  been  set  apart  by  our  worthy 
President  as   a    day  for   public  thanksgiving 
unto  Almighty  God  for  his  singularly  impres- 
sive gifts  and  unfailing  goodness,  and  perhaps 
it  may  be  wise  and  well  to  recount  a  few  of 
the  unnumbered  and  unnumberable  blessings 
for  which  we,  and  all  our  fellow-countrymen 
here  in  Christian  America,  should  be  deeply 
and  devoutly  grateful.     The  custom  of  public 
thanksgiving  has  come  down  to  us  from  our 
good  old  fathers  of  pilgrim  name.     To  them 
belongs  the  honor  of  establishing  an  observ- 
ance that  we  trust  may  never  lapse.      Many 
things  have    happened  since    the  Mayflower 
dropped  anchor  in  the  ice-bound  bay — some 
of  them  for  the  better,  some  perhaps  for  the 
worse— but  the  same  Providence  that  watched 
over    those   sturdy,    stout-hearted  wanderers 
from  the  time  they  embarked  at  Belft  Haven 
till  sixty-three  days  later  they  moored  their 
177 


Earthly  Discords. 

little  craft  of  one  hundred  and  eighty  tons  in 
the  harbor  of  Cape  Cod,  that  same  Providence 
has  been  watching  over  us,  and  leading  us, 
and  blessing  us,  making  our  land  a  land  of 
milk  and  honey,  and  one  more  nearly  fulfill- 
ing the  ideal  of  the  prophet  than  any  unre- 
deemed land  that  history  yet  acquaints  us 
with,  when  he  speaks  of  Immanuel's  land. 
The  subject  is  ample  and  far-reaching,  and 
we  can  do  little  else  than  take  a  brief  pilgrim- 
age into  the  country,  and  stir  up  the  mind 
that  is  pure  and  open  by  way  of  remembrance, 
trying  all  the  while  to  note  what  a  favored 
land  this  is,  what  a  favored  people  we  are, 
and  how  each  responsive  heart  should  join  the 
glad  triumphant  chorus, 

"Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow; 
Praise  him  all  creatures  here  below; 
Praise  him  above  ye,  heavenly  host; 
Praise  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost." 


I.  How  wonderful  our  country!  And  not 
in  swollen  style  do  we  speak  when  we  say  it 
is  the  first  country  in  the  world.  Other  coun- 
tries surpass  us  in  churches,  cathedrals,  ceme- 
teries, art  galleries,  museums,  and  scenes  of 
antiquity;  but  in  all  that  goes  to  form  a  part 
1 78 


Strains  True  and  False. 

of  daily  living  this  is  the  best  country  of  all. 
It  is  the  largest;  it  is  the  most  fertile;  it  is 
the  richest.  Russia  has  a  vast  stretch  of  ter- 
ritory, but  Russia's  territory  is  less  than  half 
the  size  of  ours.  William  M.  Sloane  notes 
how  every  American  citizen  could  be  put  into 
the  state  of  Texas  without  being  as  crowded 
as  the  people  of  England;  and  Bishop  Fallows 
claims  that  if  our  land  were  brought  under 
tillage  it  would  support  half  a  billion  people. 
Thoughtful  indeed  ought  we  to  be,  that  Provi- 
dence has  pitched  our  tent  for  us  here  in  this 
great  America,  with  its  three  million  square 
miles  of  territory,  with  its  twenty-six  thousand 
miles  of  riverway,  with  its  twelve  thousand 
miles  of  indented  shore,  with  its  eighty  million 
people,  with  its  temperate  clime  and  arable 
meadow,  a  land  through  whose  gates  famine 
never  yet  hath  entered,  where  peace  and 
plenty  reign  so  happily,  furnishing  as  we  do 
not  only  our  own  needs,  but  with  the  privilege 
of  contributing  as  we  so  largely  do  to  the  great 
world's  needs  and  the  great  world's  comforts. 


2.    How  gracious  our  climate!     The  whole 
of  India  and  much  of  China  lies  to  the  south 
of  us.      The  tropic  of   Cancer  cuts   India  in 
179 


Earthly  Discords. 

half;  the  tropic  of  Capricorn  cuts  Australia  in 
half;  the  Equator  being  the  like  dividing  line 
for  Africa.  The  whole  of  Asiatic  Russia  is 
north  ot  our  most  northerly  point,  and  most 
of  European  Russia.  How  vast  a  territory 
is  Canada,  but  the  greater  part  of  Canada  is 
uninhabitable!  Alaska  hugs  the  North  Pole; 
South  America  hugs  the  Equator.  Our  lati- 
tude stretches  from  thirty  to  forty-eight 
degrees,  the  same  as  Japan.  If  Dean  Swift 
could  humorously  say  that  most  of  the 
millions  of  the  human  race  live  in  climates 
torrid  or  horrid,  let  us  be  thankful  that  our 
lot  has  been  thrown  so  far  away  from  the 
realm  of  eternal  ice  on  the  one  side  and  eter- 
nal fever  on  the  other.  For  while  we  have 
famines,  they  are  not  Indian  famines;  fogs 
have  we,  but  no  London  fogs;  storms,  but  no 
Russian  storms.  Thoughtful  also,  then,  for 
our  climate!  To  us  favored  citizens  of  this 
genial  southland  should  these  facts  specially 
appeal.  For  is  not  ours  the  best  of  the  best 
— summer  and  winter,  winter  and  summer, 
each  the  best — a  clime  truly  of  tranquil  temper, 

"Where  everlasting  spring  abides 
And  never-withering  flowers." 


1 80 


Strains  True  and  False. 

3.  How  unexampled  our  prosperity!  We 
are  to-day,  in  a  commercial  sense,  a  very  Gi- 
braltar among  the  nations.  Our  national  debt 
is  small,  our  national  sheaf  golden;  our  har- 
vest is  a  poem  of  praise.  The  department  of 
agriculture  has  been  telling  us  that  our  crop 
of  wheat  is  seven  hundred  and  fifty  million 
bushels,  more  than  one-fourth  of  the  whole 
world's  total.  Such  fruits,  such  meats,  such 
minerals,  such  timber,  such  harvest  from 
mountain  and  meadow,  lake  and  river. 
Verily,  no  thanksgiving  table  was  ever  spread 
so  richly,  so  generously!  No  country  can 
with  ours  compare;  none  where  the  masses 
of  the  people  are  so  well  off  and  so  happy. 
Ten  cents  a  day  good  wages  in  China;  twenty 
cents  a  day  good  wages  in  Japan;  seventy- 
five  cents  a  day  good  wages  in  Germany;  one 
dollar  a  day  good  wages  in  England!  An 
honored  missionary  who  has  spent  many  years 
in  Pekin,  speaking  from  a  public  platform 
recently,  said  that  he  paid  his  cook  one  dollar 
and  seventy-five  cents  a  month  and  find  him- 
self. "My  carpenter  cost  me  eight  cents  a 
day,"  he  added.  "Millions  in  China,"  he 
further  added,  "never  get  enough  to  eat  from 
birth  till  death.  No  sweeping  rhetoric  are  we 
181 


Earthly  Discords. 

guilty  of  then  surely  when  we  claim  that  the 
toilers  of  head,  hand,  foot,  are  better  housed 
and  better  fed  in  America  than  in  any  other 
country.  They  have  more  pleasures,  more 
comforts,  more  luxuries.  Up  to  October  the 
first  of  this  year  we  have  sent  to  foreign 
markets  more  than  nine  hundred  million  dol- 
lars' worth  of  manufactured  goods.  Our 
bank  clearings  for  1901  exceeded  one  hun- 
dred billion  dollars.  How  magnificent  a 
nation  is  ours!  What  far-stretching  terri- 
tory! What  acreage  of  wheat-field!  What 
railroads,  mines,  and  factories!  What  cities, 
towns,  and  villages!  What  a  seaboard!  What 
inlets  and  outlets  for  the  world's  commerce! 
What  institutions  of  learning!  What  high 
schools  and  academies!  Six  thousand  and 
five  in  number.  What  colleges!  Four  hun- 
dred and  eighty-four  by  the  roll-call,  with  ten 
thousand  teachers  and  instructors.  Surely 
these  are  things  for  the  candid  heart  to 
ponder,  for  the  thoughtful  mind  to  weigh. 


4.    How  advanced  our  civilization!     Emer- 
son says  that  no  one  has  ever  attempted  a 
definition  of  what  civilization  is.     A  nation 
that  hath  no  tool,  no  garment,  no  alphabet,  no 
182 


Strains  True  and  False. 

civil  code,  no  temple,  no  art  or  science,  no 
commerce,  no  invention,  no  agriculture,  no 
literature,  is  uncivilized.  The  ungospeled 
Chinaman  to-day  is  the  Chinaman  of  Con- 
fucius's  time;  the  negro  is  the  negro  of  whom 
Herodotus  wrote — still  kneeling  to  his  fetich; 
the  Mongolian  still  worships  his  dragon;  the 
Hindu  still  enslaves  his  wife;  the  tattooed 
South  Sea  Islander  still  feeds  on  human  flesh. 
Traveling  back  in  memory  one  hundred  years 
what  a  collection  of  castaways  greets  the 
mind!  These  were  the  days  of  flint  locks 
and  tallow  candles,  whale-lamps  and  home- 
spun; the  days  of  Franklin  stoves  and  goose- 
quills;  the  days  of  bad  roads  and  log  cabins, 
the  ox-cart  and  the  stage-coach;  the  days  of 
scythe  and  sickle,  flail  and  winnowing  floor; 
these  the  days  of  awl  and  churn  and  spinning- 
wheel.  These  were  the  days  of  bungling 
surgery,  human  slavery,  and  the  Inquisition. 
"One  hundred  years  ago,"  it  has  been  re- 
marked, "a  man  might  be  taken  on  Friday, 
arraigned  on  Saturday,  preached  fire  and 
brimstone  to  on  Sunday,  and  found  on  Tues- 
day to  be  innocent."  Our  first  President 
died  at  Mount  Vernon  on  the  banks  of  the 
Potomac.     At  that  time  the  capital  was  in 

^S3 


Earthly  Discords. 

Philadelphia,  one  hundred  miles  away.  The 
sixth  congress  had  just  assembled,  and  a 
courier  was  dispatched.  They  received  the 
tidings  three  days  later.  The  first  railroad 
time-table  read  thus,  "The  locomotive  will 
leave  the  depot  every  morning  at  eight  if  the 
weather  is  fair."  To-day  America  alone 
operates  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
miles  of  railroad,  more  than  half  the  railroad 
mileage  of  the  world.  The  hours  of  toil  are 
halved,  the  hours  of  recreation  doubled.  The 
average  length  of  life  has  been  pushed  forward 
ten  milestones.  New  light  has  abolished 
darkness,  new  tools  have  abolished  drudgery. 
The  child  of  the  artisan  has  open  pathway 
to  the  college  fountain,  and  what  were  luxu- 
ries but  yesterday  at  the  banquet  of  the  rich 
are  now  necessities  on  the  table  of  the  poor. 

When  New  York  heard  of  Waterloo  six 
weary  weeks  had  lapsed.  To-day  the  conti- 
nents are  linked  by  fourteen  wires  and  fourteen 
hundred  ships,  carrying  their  own  engine  for 
converting  salt  water  into  fresh.  For  that, 
notes  our  Concord  sage,  is  what  civilization 
after  all  is,  "converting  salt  water  into  fresh; 
teaching  the  chimney  to  burn  its  own  smoke; 
teaching  the  farm  to  produce  its  own  needs; 
1S4 


Strains  True  and  False. 

teaching  the  prison  to  maintain  itself  and  yield 
a  revenue";  teaching  the  anaesthetic  to  pull 
the  sting  out  of  the  surgeon's  knife;  teaching 
the  good-natured  waterfall  to  turn  the  wheel; 
teaching  gravity  to  bring  down   the  ax  and 
split  the  wood;  teaching  the  tides  to  grind  our 
corn;  teaching  the  elevator  to  lift  it  to  the 
fifteenth  story;  teaching  old  Father  Neptune 
to  carry  to  your  noonday  tabic  delicacies  from 
the  five  continents  and  the  Islands  of  the  sea. 
What  a  glorious  age  indeed  is  ours!     Deep 
should  be  our  gratitude  for  such  an  age,  such 
a  fatherland,  for  our  advance  in  science  and 
the  arts.     Does  some  narrow-minded  lover  of 
discord  aim  to  stir  up  strife  between  science 
and  religion?     Vain  and  idle  were  the  effort. 
Never  were   these   one-time   warring   lovers 
better  friends.     True  science  and  true  reli- 
gion have  no  quarrel.      In  heart    they  have 
always  been  as  one.     Never  were  they  march- 
ing  on  so  happily  as  to-day.     Joined   they 
have  been  in  an  eternal  wedlock.     For  reli- 
gion to-day  is  the  minister  of   science,   and 
science  is  the  servant  of  religion  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  hidden  workings  of  the  laws 
of  life. 


185 


/  Earthly  Discords. 

5.  How  world-admired  our  government! 
"A  government  of  the  people  and  by  the  peo- 
ple and  for  the  people";  a  government  that 
secures  for  every  loyal  citizen  life,  liberty,  and 
chance  to  be  happy;  a  Christian  government, 
stamped  so  on  our  colonization  and  our  coin. 
In  a  passage  of  polished  fervor  Cicero  tells  us 
how  the  words  "Civis  Romanus  sum"  gave 
panoply,  prestige,  and  power.  Right  proudly 
does  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  boast  "I  am 
a  Jew  of  Tarsus,  a  citizen  of  no  mean  city. ' ' 
Does  American  citizenship  mean  less?  As 
we  think  of  the  luster  of  our  national  emi- 
nence; as  we  fling  our  eye  far  down  afield 
and  watch  that  long  line  of  worthies  who  en- 
dured contradiction  and  shame,  who  waxed 
valiant  in  fight  and  handed  down  to  us  our 
glorious  heritage  of  never-dimming  deed  and 
valiant  venture — from  George  Washington  to 
William  McKinley — surely  we  have  a  right  to 
feel  a  pride  as  pure  and  a  thrill  as  chivalrous 
as  can  quicken  the  pulse  of  any  Jew  or  any 
Roman.  A  great  living  historian  propound- 
ing the  question  "What  has  Africa  done  for 
the  world?"  replies  "Apart  from  Egypt, 
nothing. ' '  And  pursuing  the  thought.  What, 
may  we  inquire,  has  Austria  done?  What  has 
186 


Strains  True  and  False. 

Russia  done?  What  Turkey?  What  Portu- 
gal? What  single  blessing  has  Asia  conferred 
upon  the  race?  Mr.  Beecher  was  wont  to  say 
that  "saving  one  little  insignificant  corner 
called  Palestine,  the  whole  continent  of  Asia 
might  be  turned  bottom  side  up  into  the  gulf 
of  destiny  and  not  one  worthy  idea  would  be 
lost."  Greece  has  given  to  us  the  principles 
of  aesthetics.  Rome  has  handed  down  to  us 
the  laws  of  government.  England  stands  for 
poetry,  history,  liberty,  invention,  commerce, 
agriculture,  jurisprudence,  religion.  And 
what  does  America  represent?  Let  that 
great  Englishman  speak,  Mr.  Gladstone. 
"America  stands  for  all  that  is  democratic  in 
the  policy  of  Great  Britain,  and  all  that  is 
Protestant  in  her  religion."  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  in  a  day  of  intense  public 
excitement  in  New  York  City  the  lamented 
Garfield  stood  in  the  presence  of  a  dense 
throng  of  liberty-loving  people,  and  the  first 
words  he  spoke  were  these,  "The  Lord 
reigneth,  let  the  earth  rejoice;  let  the  multi- 
tude of  isles  be  glad  thereof.  Clouds  and 
darkness  are  round  about  him,  but  justice  and 
judgment  are  the  habitation  of  his  throne" — 
while  the  multitude  bowed  their  heads  in 
1 87 


Earthly  Discords. 

silence  and  there  was  a  felt  hush.  Verily 
indeed  the  heart  of  the  nation  is  Christian. 
So  permeated  with  the  principles  of  our 
Divine  Master  is  the  spirit  of  our  government 
that  we  should  be  joyful  in  temper,  hopeful 
in  tone.  "For  our  God  hath  not  dealt  so 
with  any  people;  praise  to  his  name." 


Perhaps  it  were  not  wise  to  paint  every- 
thing in  colors  overhopeful,  for  many  are  the 
dangers  confronting  us  as  a  people — dangers 
desperate  and  dark.  We  love  our  fatherland 
as  ardently  as  the  Swiss  mountaineer  loves 
his  hilltop  or  the  Scotchman  his  heather,  and 
'tis  just  because  we  so  love  it  that  we  are 
sometimes  alarmed.  Are  we  not  all  apt  to 
glory  overmuch,  for  instance,  in  our  spirit  of 
liberty?  "Let  not  the  wise  man  glory  in 
his  wisdom;  let  not  the  mighty  man  glory  in 
his  might;  but  let  him  that  glorieth  glory 
in  this,  that  he  understandeth  and  knoweth 
me,  that  I  am  the  Lord  which  exerciseth 
loving  kindness  and  judgment  and  righteous- 
ness in  the  earth."  Little  doubt  that  no 
country  enjoys  the  liberty  we  do — liberty  of 
the  press,  liberty  of  the  pulpit,  liberty  of 
thought,  liberty  of  expression.  We  are  proud 
1 88 


Strains  True  and  False. 

of  it — and  justly.  We  prize  it  as  we  do  no 
law  or  institution.  It  is  the  most  sacred  trust 
given  to  us  by  God;  it  is  the  most  important 
victory  ever  fought  for  by  man.  "As  for 
me,"  said  the  orator,  "give  me  liberty  or 
give  me  death!"  But  never  for  an  instant  let 
it  be  forgotten  that  most  of  the  crimes  of  his- 
tory have  been  loaded  on  to  this  word  "liberty." 
No  name,  perhaps,  in  our  Saxon  vernacu- 
lar so  shamefully  abused!  In  the  name  of 
liberty  hath  every  government  been  estab- 
lished; in  the  name  of  liberty  czars  have  been 
crowned  and  tyrants  enthroned  and  presidents 
assassinated;  in  the  name  of  liberty  have  politi- 
cal corruptionists  met  in  solemn  conclave  and 
opened  their  meetings  with  prayer;  in  the 
name  of  liberty  some  Tammany  Hall  levies 
blackmail  and  legalizes  vice;  in  the  name  of 
liberty  a  scandalous  journalism  cartoons  our 
worthiest  men;  in  the  sacred  name  of  liberty 
anarchy  has  lifted  its  red  flag  to  the  breeze. 
Truly  with  Madame  Roland  we  may  well  ex- 
claim, as  on  her  way  to  the  guillotine  she 
paused  before  a  statue  of  Freedom,  "Oh, 
'  liberty,  what  crimes  are  committed  in  thy 
noble  name!"  The  department  of  justice 
tells  us  that  there  have  been  three  thousand 
1S9 


Earthly  Discords. 

cases  of  death  by  lynching  in  our  country  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty  years.  One  hundred  and 
fifty  a  year!  And  all  in  the  name  of  liberty! 
Some  time  ago  the  Danish  government  par- 
doned a  notorious  forger  on  condition  that  he 
would  go  to  the  United  States.  Statistics 
show  that  seventy-four  per  cent  of  the  dis- 
charged convicts  of  Ireland  have  emigrated  to 
America.  And  all  in  the  name  of  liberty! 
These  men  we  have  welcomed;  some  we  have 
lifted  to  positions  of  trust  who  in  sooth  are 
worse  than  pagans;  in  comparison  therewith 
the  Chinaman,  whom  we  ostracize,  being  a 
veritable  celestial.  Many  belong  to  societies 
that  exist  for  the  destruction  of  law  and 
order.  Many  are  anarchists,  many  nihilists, 
and  all  infidels. 

Quite  recently  the  New  York  police  ar- 
rested John  Most  for  an  article  which  he 
published  calling  upon  his  readers  to  save 
humanity  by  blood  and  steel  and  poison. 
Said  he  to  his  arresters:  "All  that  I  have 
written  was  simply  in  a  new  guise  what  has 
been  printed  and  reprinted  one  thousand 
times  in  the  last  fifty  years."  He  was  right. 
"We  have  been  coddling  the  serpent  and  now 
we  are  poulticing  the  sting. "  It  is  our  proud 
190 


Strains  True  and  False. 

boast  that  our  government  is  by  the  people 
and  for  the  people,  yet  'tis  an  open  saying 
that  the  bosses  are  more  powerful  than  the 
people.  We  have  one  million  five  hundred 
thousand  tramps;  we  have  one  hundred  thou- 
sand criminals  in  prison;  we  have  twenty 
thousand  youth  in  our  reformatories;  we  have 
one  hundred  thousand  paupers.  In  1901 
there  were  eight  thousand  murders  of  the  first 
degree.  Divorces  are  increasing  three  times 
as  fast  as  the  population.  Some  one  figures 
out  that  if  this  ratio  is  kept  up  till  the  end  of 
the  twentieth  century,  separations  by  death 
will  be  considerably  less  than  separations  by 
discord.  And  all,  alas,  in  the  holy  name  of 
liberty!  Do  these  things  mean  nothing? 
Does  it  mean  nothing  that  we  roast  alive 
every  year  more  human  beings  than  any  sav- 
age tribe  in  Senegambia.'  Does  it  mean 
nothing  that  the  marriage  law  is  less  respected 
here  than  in  any  papal  commonwealth  since 
the  time  of  Charlemagne.''  Does  it  mean 
nothing  that  a  ruler's  life  is  less  safe  here  in 
free  America  than  in  Mexico  or  Samoa  or 
Erromanga?  How  many  kings  of  England 
have  been  put  to  death  since  the  time  of 
Alfred?  These  things  do  surely  mean  some- 
191 


\ 


Earthly  Discords. 

thing.  They  mean  everything.  They  mean, 
do  they  not,  that  we  are  glorying  overmuch 
in  our  spirit  of  liberty;  and  if  anything  should 
call  us  to  national  penitence  and  the  reading 
of  the  fifty-first  psalm,  it  is  facts,  grave  and 
urgent,  such  as  these. 


Then  the  saloon!  Full  oft  an  age  of  lux- 
ury resents  plain  speaking  about  a  flagrant  sin, 
but  earnest  men  and  women  have  no  time  to 
waste  in  sewing  fig-leaves  over  the  naked 
truth.  No  language  can  express  much  less 
exaggerate  the  enormity  of  this  man-defying, 
God-defying  evil.  Drink  confounds  us,  shames 
us,  laughs  at  us  at  every  turn.  Scarcely  a 
vice  or  disease  or  disorder  that  morally  speak- 
ing is  not  linked  with  drink!  Drink  has  been 
characterized  as  one  billion  of  capital  invested 
in  a  great  tyrannous  trust  for  slaying  the 
youth  of  America,  body,  mind,  and  spirit, 
degrading  manhood,  debasing  womanhood, 
befouling  childhood,  absolutely  pitiless,  abso- 
lutely inhuman.  Cholera  is  a  mystery  of  the 
air,  and  visits  us  every  quarter  of  a  century, 
but  here  is  a  ravage  preying  upon  us  daily  and 
in  comparison  therewith  making  our  Asiatic 
visitor  a  feeble,  hurtless  creature.  Do  we 
192 


Strains  True  and  False. 

realize  that  three-fourths  of  all  the  horrors 
that  sadden  and  sicken  society  are  directly 
traceable  to  the  tearful  traffic?  Who  can 
sum  up  the  crimes  and  cruelties  of  war?  'Tis 
said  that  one  million  men  died  at  the  bidding 
of  Xerxes,  another  million  at  the  call  of  Caesar, 
and  still  a  third  million  at  the  nod  of  Napo- 
leon. Approximately,  one  hundred  battles 
were  fought  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  a 
celebrated  English  statesman  has  given  as  his 
opinion  that  of  these  only  one  was  a  field  of 
honor — that  on  which  the  United  States  de- 
fended her  national  life.  But  here  is  a  death- 
struggle  that  hath  no  field  of  honor,  no  equity, 
no  conscience,  thoroughly  wicked,  thoroughly 
pitiless,  thoroughly  unscrupulous,  thoroughly 
un-American.  And  if  there  is  anything  that 
makes  the  sense  of  injustice  stir  the  breast  of 
patriotism,  it  is  to  see  the  stars  and  stripes, 
which  we  familiarly  term  ' '  Old  Glory, ' '  float- 
ing from  the  gable  shaft  of  some  saloon.  Old 
Glory  stands  for  life,  liberty,  and  a  chance  to 
be  happy;  the  saloon  expresses  death,  slavery, 
and  a  chance  to  be  wretched.  Only  one  flag 
harmonizes  with  the  dram-shop,  the  red  flag, 
and  here  insooth  it  usually  floats. 


193 


Earthly  Discords. 

One  jar  in  the  music  of  our  national  life 
calls  for  constant  and  repeated  caution. 
"Beware  of  covetousness,"  said  the  Master; 
"for  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abun- 
dance of  the  things  which  he  possesseth. " 
Scarcely  a  chapter  in  which  his  prophetic  eye 
does  not  touch  upon  the  tempting  snare! 
Covetousness  seems  the  one  eager,  all-ab- 
sorbing hunger  of  the  age.  Touch  what 
part  of  our  common  life  we  may,  we  are  met 
on  every  hand  by  its  insatiable  thirst.  Go 
where  we  will,  talk  with  whom  we  will,  the 
spirit  of  the  age  is  commercial,  the  ring  of  its 
conversational  tone  metallic.  When  women 
in  their  clubs  are  discussing  the  question 
"What  are  the  limits  of  allowable  luxury?" 
and  when  the  conclusion  is  reached  that  there 
are  no  limits,  is  it  not  time  for  the  church  to 
speak,  and  is  it  not  time  for  the  church  to 
speak  loud?  Does  there  not  seem  need  for 
another  Luther  or  Wesley  or  Savonarola? 

No  Spartan  mother  would  deign  to  wear 
jewelry  on  her  person,  and  who  but  has  a 
prevailing  admiration  for  the  social  star  to-day 
who  is  simple  in  her  attire,  modest  in  her 
appointments?  Overdress  has  been  termed 
one  of  the  plagues  of  this  opening  century. 
194 


Strains  True  and  False. 

If  the  wife  of  our  honored  President  can  dress 
on  three  hundred  dollars  a  year,  why  may  not 
every  American  mother  do  the  same?  If  the 
tenth  commandment  still  is  binding,  surely 
trying  to  breed  envy  in  her  weaker  sister  is  as 
unchristian  as  cherishing  it  herself.  How 
much  nobler  to  tempt  soften  the  rigors  of  her 
dull  monotony!  How  beautiful  the  greatness 
that  is  great  enough  to  be  simple!  How 
Christ-like  the  power  that  does  not  parade  it- 
self! That  man  who  wrestles  successfully  with 
the  luxury  of  the  age  is  the  true  patrician. 
The  youth  who  can  journey  single-eyed  along 
prosperity's  pathway  unmoved  by  its  tinsel 
glitter  is  a  hero.  The  maiden  who  can  pass 
some  Cleopatra  in  her  gorgeousness,  yet  not 
feel  the  sting  of  envy  is  a  heroine  as  truly  as 
Florence  Nightingale.  For  the  days  of 
knight-errantry  are  not  passed.  When  we 
read  of  the  millions  lavished  on  vain  display, 
costly  feasts,  extravagant  dress,  how  we  stand 
aghast!  One  hundred  million  dollars  spent 
every  twelve  months  for  jewelry,  and  five  and 
one-half  for  missions;  more  than  six  hundred 
men  going  astray  last  year  as  embezzlers,  rob- 
bing the  people  of  twenty-five  million  dollars 
in  the  vain  effort  to  keep  up  expensive  homes! 

'V5 


Earthly  Discords. 

Verily  indeed  he  was  not  far  wrong  who  called 
luxury  the  spade  that  has  dug  the  grave  of 
every  empire  that  has  ever  perished. 

Prosperity  is  not  the  throne  of  greatness, 
but  its  tomb.  And  if  we  as  a  people  are 
going  in  for  false  liberty  and  indulgence,  our 
army  will  not  save  us,  our  navy  cannot  save 
us;  the  old  way  of  Persia  and  Carthage  and 
Syria  and  Rome  we  must  go.  Some  future 
Gibbon  will  be  writing  the  "decline  and  fall 
of  the  American  empire, "  "  Better  be  poorer 
and  purer."  "Manhood  is  worth  more  than 
money  hood." 

"Far  called  our  navies  melt  away; 
On  dune  and  headland  sinks  the  fire; 
Lo !  all  the  pomp  of  yesterday 
Is  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre. 
Judge  of  the  nations,  spaie  us  yet. 
Lest  we  forget,  forget." 


To  all  young  hearts  toiling  hard  over  task 
and  tool  in  this  gracious  republic  of  light  and 
privilege  comes  one  happy  reflection  to  drown 
many  a  grating  note,  that  ours  is  a  fatherland 
of  homes.  It  has  been  noted  that  the  French 
nation  have  no  word  for  home  in  their  lan- 
guage. Home  is  the  salt  of  society,  and 
herein  lies  our  hope.  Perhaps  the  best  gift 
196 


Strains  True  and  False. 

that  two  young  loving  hearts  can  bequeath  to 
their  country  is  to  build  a  home.  For  home 
is  the  corner-stone  of  church  and  state.  De- 
stroy all  our  churches  and  less  harm  would  be 
done  than  by  destroying  our  homes.  It  is 
the  home  that  keeps  the  church  alive,  and 
just  so  soon  as  the  home  dies  the  church  must 
die.  Home  is  the  cradle  of  everything  great 
by  every  adjustment  of  the  eternal. 

We  talk  of  home.  We  sing  its  praises. 
"Home,  sweet  home,"  how  fondly  do  we 
love  thee!  how  excellent  is  thy  name  in  all 
the  earth!  A  true  home  is  a  little,  cosey, 
storm-sheltered  nook  where  two  lives  may 
open  out  into  flower  and  fragrance.  Truly 
indeed  a  true  home  is  a  little  corner  of  heaven. 
Roaming  through  some  of  the  grand  cathe- 
drals of  the  older  world,  and  listening  to  the 
chants  and  choruses  of  angel-seeing  voices, 
how  the  heart  is  stirred!  how  soft  and  rever- 
ent the  footsteps!  how  hallowed  seem  the 
arches!  how  transfigured  the  walls  and  win- 
dows! how  sacred  and  spiritual  the  place! 
But  the  most  sacred  place  is  a  place  called 
home.  There  we  recall  the  sweet  faces  of 
long  ago.  "How  dear  to  our  hearts  are  the 
scenes  of  our  childhood!"  Never  can  we 
197 


Earthly  Discords. 

j  forget  that  crackling  fireside  and  the  old  fam- 

i   ily  tryst, 

"The  cheerfu'  supper  done;  wi'  serious  face 
All  round  the  ingle  form  a  circle  wide." 

It  lingers  as  a  sweet  memory-morsel  still. 

"Mid  pleasures  and  palaces  tho'  we  may  roam, 
Be  it  ever  so  humble  there's  no  place  like  home." 

There  is  a  story  told  of  the  king  of  Sparta. 
An  ambassador  was  visiting  him,  and  one  day 
he  inquired,  "Where  are  the  walls  of  Sparta?" 

"Did  you  not  see  them?"  said  the  king. 

"No,"  said  the  ambassador,  "I  have 
walked  all  around  but  have  seen  no  wall." 

"Ah,"   replied  the  king,    "I   must  show 

you  them  to-morrow. ' '     On  the  morrow  the 

king  drew  up  ten  thousand  trained  soldiers, 

and  sweeping  his  hand,  "these,  sir,  are  the 

walls  of  Sparta. ' ' 

I        Amid  the  conflicts  and  clashings  of  our 

\  national  troubles  ofttimes  are  we  apt  to  think 

that  the  walls  of  America  are  at  Annapolis  or 

f  West  Point.     But  oh,  not  so!     Not  so! 

The  walls  of  America  are  found  in  her 
million  homes,  where  love  and  truth  and 
thrift  are  taught,  where  the  religion  of  Jesus 
the  Christ  is  preached  and  practiced.  Never 
have  railways  made  a  country  great;  never 
iq8 


Strains  True  and  False. 

commerce.  Nor  has  any  army  or  navy  or 
military  prestige  ever  lifted  a  nation  up  the 
ladder  of  luster.  Nothing  has  ever  made  a 
country  shine  but  homes, 

"To  mak'  a  happy  fireside  clime 
To  weans  and  wife ; 
That's  the  true  pathos  sublime 
Of  human  life." 


199 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Heaven,  the   Healing   Harmony. 

Such  are  some  of  life's  discords  that  mar 
the  music  of  our  earthly  living,  and  the  ques- 
tion arises  in  the  hearts  of  all  earnest  men, 
Is  there  no  healing  remedy?  Is  there  no 
balm  in  Gilead?  is  there  no  physician  there? 
In  an  early  chapter  it  was  hinted  how 
little  the  college  avails  to  give  power  to 
the  weak  of  will,  peace  to  the  heavy  of  heart; 
also  noted  that  if  the  teacher  can  do  little,  the 
law-giver  can  do  even  less;  with  the  final  and 
compelling  claim  that  some  help  from  above, 
some  new  spiritual  birthright,  is  the  only 
antidote  for  life's  banes,  the  only  healing  for 
its  hurts,  the  only  balm  for  its  bruises,  the 
only  cure  for  its  pathetic  griefs  and  ills  and 
pains.  So  we  return  to  the  hymnist.  His 
we  believe  the  true  note  who  makes  heaven 
the  one  controlling  harmony.  The  heavenly 
life  hath  power  to  bring  unison  to  earth's 
most  discordant  voices: 

"Come,  ye  disconsolate,  where'er  ye  languish, 
Come  to  the  mercy-seat,  fervently  kneel, 

203 


Earthly  Discords. 

Here    bring  your  wounded    hearts,    here    tell  your 
anguish ; 
Earth  hath  no  sorrow  that  heaven  cannot  heal." 

An  eminent  writer  has  recently  said  that 
there  are  seven  lives  of  Christ.  There  is  a 
life  by  Matthew  and  Mark  and  Luke  and 
John;  that  is  four.  There  is  a  prophetic  life 
in  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament;  there 
is  a  post-resurrection  life  in  the  Acts  of  the 
Apostles;  and  the  seventh  life  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Christian's  own  life;  "1  live,  yet  not  I 
but  Christ  liveth  in  me. ' ' 

This  it  is  to  be  a  Christian;  Christ  born  in 
us;  Christ  dwelling  in  us;  Christ  controlling 
us;  Christ  impulsing  us;  Christ  motiving  us; 
Christ  over  all  and  above  all  and  in  you  all — 
yea,  Christ  all  in  all.  "For  me,"  saith  the 
apostle,  "to  live  is  Christ." 


And  what  doth  "living  Christ"  imply? 
This:  every  life  hath  its  slumbering  motive, 
its  ruling  passion,  its  ultimate  design.  And 
the  motive  of  life  is  its  love.  Knowing  what 
the  youth  loves  we  know  the  youth,  and  not 
until  we  know  that  do  we  understand  him 
fully.  "Tell  me  what  you  like, ' '  said  Ruskin, 
"and  I'll  tell  you  what  you  are."  A  man  is 
204 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

not  truthful  who  speaks  the  truth;  he  may 
be  paid  for  speaking  the  truth.  A  man  is 
truthful  who  desires  to  speak  the  truth.  And 
the  Christianity  of  Jesus  comes  not  merely  to 
teach  us  to  do  what  is  right,  and  to  help  us  to 
do  it,  but  that  we  may  delight  in  doing  it. 
To  tell  the  truth  and  to  love  to  tell  the  truth, 
this  alone  is  truthfulness;  to  lead  pure  lives 
and  to  love  to  lead  pure  lives,  this  only  is 
purity ;  to  do  unto  others  as  we  would  that 
others  do  unto  us,  and  to  affect  so  to  live, 
this  is  living  by  the  golden  rule.  Thus  not 
deed  but  desire  is  the  measure  of  manhood, 
the  touchstone  of  tendency,  the  criterion  of 
character.  ' '  Blessed  are  they  who  do  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness  for  they  shall  be 
filled." 


Musicians  have  recently  given  to  our  word- 
motive  a  new  and  larger  meaning,  signifying 
by  it  a  theme  that  recurs  frequently  in  any 
great  dramatic  work.  Thus,  in  order  to  evoke 
the  idea  of  war,  peace,  pride,  pity,  the  wail 
of  the  wind,  the  sweep  of  the  storm,  the  song 
of  the  bird,  the  play  of  trickling  water,  cer- 
tain notes  and  a  certain  touch  are  needed. 
Handel,  in  his  oratorio  "Israel,"  represents 
205 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  sun  standing  still  by  a  long  drawn  out 
tone,  and  darkness  by  a  sound  analogue. 
Wagner  attempted  to  make  every  bar,  almost 
every  note,  correspond  to  a  word. 

Who  that  has  listened  to  the  Marsellaise 
but  has  felt  the  somber  severity  of  that  great 
national  strain.  In  vision  one  can  see  the 
soldiers  trudging  along,  footsore  and  weary, 
counting  the  cost,  yet  willing  to  fight,  and  if 
need  be  die,  for  their  country.  These  and  all 
such  representations  are  called  a  "motive," 
because  they  move  all  minds  alike  and  draw 
all  hearts  into  a  common  emotion. 

In  like  manner  each  life  hath  its  motive. 
"You  can  unlock  a  man's  whole  being,"  said 
Henry  Drummond,  "if  you  watch  what  words 
he  uses  most";  and  full  truthfully  it  may  be 
said  that  the  youth's  whole  inner  life  is  alto- 
gether unfolded  when  once  we  learn  the  lode- 
stones  that  lure  him  on. 

That  brilliant  girl,  Marie  Bashkirtseff, 
wrote  in  her  diary  these  words:  "It  is  the  New 
Year  at  the  theater,  precisely  midnight,  watch 
in  hand;  I  wished  my  wish  in  a  word;  it 
leaped  to  my  tongue,  intoxicating,  thrilling — 
Fame."  If  to-night,  dear  reader,  you  were 
to  do  likewise,  take  out  your  watch,  that  is  at 
206 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

midnight,  and  wish  the  true  wish  of  your  heart 
in  a  word,  what  would  that  word  be?  Cross- 
ing the  bridge  at  Venice  one  beautiful  even- 
ing, Lord  Byron  tells  us  how,  looking  over  his 
shoulder,  he  saw  a  shooting  star.  It  cleaved 
its  brilliant  pathway  across  the  breast  of  night 
and  dropped  in  the  distant  waters  of  Tuscany. 

"The  desire  of  my  heart,"  says  the  poet, 
"sprang  to  my  lips  hke  a  panther;  it  gripped 
me,  dazed  me — 'Indulgence.' 

Recently  a  woman  of  note  came  to  live  in 
a  certain  neighborhood  in  one  of  our  suburban 
towns.  She  was  wealthy  and  built  around 
herself  a  wall  of  exclusiveness,  so  that  it  was 
no  easy  matter  to  approach  her.  For  several 
reasons  the  local  clergyman  became  convinced 
that  it  was  his  duty  to  call.  Presenting  his 
passports  to  the  different  outer-guards,  he  at 
last  succeeded  in  meeting  the  lady  herself. 
Looking  at  him  with  affected  surprise  she 
asked,  bluntly — cruelly  so — "And  what  was 
it  you  wished  to  see  me  for,  sir?" 

The  clerical  dignitary  was  taken  somewhat 
aback,  but  replied  that  he  had  not  come  for 
himself,  that  he  represented  a  little  church 
around  the  corner,  that  his  people  were  poor, 
that  her  coachman's  children  were  in  the  Sab- 
207 


Earthly  Discords. 

bath  school,  and  that  he  thought  he  might  be 
able  to  interest  her  enough  to  help  them  in 
their  work.  But  his  visit  was  received  so 
coldly  that  he  was  obliged  to  withdraw. 

Next  morning  a  line  came  from  our  mis- 
tress of  the  mansion,  asking  him  to  call  at  his 
own  time,  that  she  was  very  sorry  for  the  way 
she  had  acted.  The  last  sentence  in  the  mis- 
sive read  as  follows:  "Hope  you  will  forgive 
me  for  being  so  selfish;  it  has  dawned  upon 
me  that  I  must  be  a  veiy  selfish  woman. ' ' 


Now,  just  as  the  prompting  of  the  brilliant 
Russian  artist  and  authoress  was  fame,  and 
that  of  Lord  Byron  was  indulgence,  and  that 
of  our  lady  of  wealth  and  fashion  was  selfish- 
ness, so  the  idol  of  Paul  was  Christ.  At  the 
shrine  of  Christ  he  bended  the  knee.  His 
reverent  heart  turned  to  Christ  as  naturally  as 
the  mineral  to  magnet.  "For  Paul  to  live 
was  Christ";  for  him  to  die  was  Christ. 
"Whether  we  live  we  live  unto  the  Lord, 
whether  we  die  we  die  unto  the  Lord;  whether 
we  live  or  die,  therefore,  we  are  the  Lord's." 
Was  the  apostle's  eating  and  drinking  Christ.? 
Aye,  surely,  for  did  he  not  eat  and  drink  to 
his  glory.'*  Was  his  suffering  Christ?  Verily 
208 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

indeed  it  was.  "From  henceforth  let  no  man 
trouble  me,  for  I  bear  in  my  body  the  marks 
of  the  Lord  Jesus. ' ' 

Was  his  creed  Christ ?     "I  know  whom  I 
have  believed. ' ' 

Was  his  love  Christ.-'  "I  am  ready,  not  to 
be  bound  only,  but  also  to  die  if  need  be  at 
Jerusalem  for  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus. ' ' 

Aye,  Paul's  creed  was  Christ;  his  love 
was  Christ;  his  ambition  was  Christ.  The 
whole  passion  of  the  man  was  to  communi- 
cate Christ.  Christ  lived  in  him,  coursed 
through  his  veins,  colored  his  fancy  and  feel- 
ing; Christ  spoke  by  him,  wept  through  him, 
suffered  in  him.  "Now  I  rejoice  in  my  suf- 
ferings and  fill  up  that  which  is  behind  of  the 
afflictions  of  Christ  in  my  flesh  for  his  body's 
sake  which  is  the  Church. ' '  The  whole  de- 
sire of  the  apostle,  if  need  be,  was  to  be  a 
fool  for  Christ's  sake.  "Christ  was  the 
Greenwich  from  which  he  counted  longitude, 
the  equator  from  which  he  reckoned  latitude. " 
Just  as  the  merchant  brings  everything  to  the 
gauge  of  the  dollar,  just  as  the  architect 
brings  everything  to  the  rule  of  beauty,  just 
as  the  writer  of  pure  English  brings  every- 
thing to  the  form  of  expression  as  found  in 
209 


Earthly  Discords. 

the  great  standard  authors,  just  as  each  Bal- 
zac and  Scott  and  Hawthorne  and  Hugo  test 
their  work  by  the  canons  of  real  life,  so  the 
Christian  is  one  for  whom  Christ  is  final 
authority  and  court  of  last  appeal.  And  it  is 
all  a  matter  of  motive;  nay,  rather  is  it  all  a 
matter  of  supreme  motive.  For  our  motives 
are  many,  but  the  supreme  motive  is  one. 

Each  life  revolves  about  some  central  sun. 
What  is  that  central  sun?  For  the  Christian 
it  is  Christ. 

The  ancient  legend  tells  us  that  when 
Theseus  was  about  to  enter  the  labyrinth  with 
drawn  sword  to  destroy  the  monster,  his  sister 
Ariadne  had  tied  around  his  ankle  a  silken 
thread  and  told  him  that  when  he  felt  the 
gentle  pulling  of  that  thread  he  would  know 
that  she  was  thinking  of  him.  Just  so  is 
there  a  mystic  thread  linking  the  saved  soul 
with  its  Saviour,  a  bond  of  love,  of  commu- 
nion, of  sweet  and  holy  fellowship.  The  life 
gravitates  to  its  Lord  under  the  pull  of  some 
hidden  working.  "I,  if  I  be  lifted  up  from 
the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me. ' '  The 
Crucified  One  thus  is  the  magnet  of  the  moral 
world — the  pole  and  the  dynamic  of  all  holy 
endeavor — to  whom  and  from  whom  are  all 
210 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

things,  "For  all  things  were  created  by  him 
and  for  him,  and  he  is  before  all  things  and 
by  him  all  things  consist;  that  in  all  things  he 
might  have  the  pre-eminence. ' ' 

Here,  then,  is  the  healing  harmony  for  all 
of  life's  discords — Christ,  i.  e.,  living  Christ 
— not  mere  profession,  but  whole-hearted  sur- 
render and  happy-hearted  service.  For  noth- 
ing, alas,  does  the  world  stand  lacking  to-day 
so  much  as  Jesus  Christ  enthroned  in  the 
loves  and  lives  of  men.  Nothing  doth  soci- 
ety need  more  than  a  practical  Christianity 
that  hath  its  roots  deep  down  in  the  heart  of 
the  forgiven  child  of  grace.  For  lip  worship 
is  loud  and  flippant  still;  surface  attachment 
is  popular;  public  profession  still  regarded, 
many,  alas,  making  a  worldly  convenience  of 
sacred  things;  but  to  be  a  living  Christian,  to 
really  live  Christ  in  the  overflowing  fulness 
of  that  wondrous  wealthy  word — how  rare! 
how  intermittent!  yet  how  fruitful,  how  preg- 
nant, how  eloquent  of  things  fair  and  excellent! 


"I  knew  a  man,"  says  Henry  Drummond, 
"the  author  of  a  well-known  orthodox  theo- 
logical work,  which  has  passed  through  a  dozen 
editions  and   lies  on  the  shelves  of  all  our 

211 


Earthly  Discords. 

libraries.  I  never  knew  that  man  to  go  to 
church  nor  to  give  a  farthing  to  charity — 
though  he  was  rich — nor  give  any  sensible 
sign  that  he  was  really  living  Christ. ' ' 


Verily,  indeed,  many  there  are  to-day  who 
worship  a  dead  Christ,  but  ours  is  no  dead 
Leader;  ours  is  a  living  Leader.  "I  am  he 
that  liveth  and  was  dead,  and  behold  I  am 
alive  forevermore. " 

Our  Lord  is  still  with  us  as  ever,  and  will 
be  to  the  end.  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway, 
even  unto  the  end  of  the  age. ' '  But  his  work 
is  thwarted  in  that  he  lacks  an  undivided  loy- 
alty; he  is  not  appropriated  to  the  full.  For 
many  he  is  but  a  partial  Saviour.  It  hath 
pleased  the  King  to  express  himself  through 
his  own.  If  we  revolt  we  deprive  him  of  the 
means  of  expression.  When  Christians  give 
themselves  to  their  Master  completely  and 
receive  him  in  his  abundant  and  abiding  ful- 
ness and  live  his  life  in  joyful  and  complete 
surrender,  then  will  be  the  dawning  of  the 
golden  age  foretold  in  his  own  pattern  prayer, 
"Thy  kingdom  come,  thy  will  be  done  on 
earth  as  it  is  done  in  heaven."  For  when 
Christ   is    lived,    sin  will    be  loathed;    when 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

Christ  is  Hved,  self  will  be  lost;  when  Christ 
is  lived,  all  discord  will  speedily  vanish,  all 
ambition  be  fulfilled,  planning  solely  for  those 
things  which  are  seen  and  temporal  will  seem 
a  cheap  and  empty  mockery,  laying  up  treas- 
ure on  earth  will  argue  a  vain  and  idle  inter- 
est; when  Christ  is  lived,  the  world  will  not 
kneel  at  the  shrine  of  affluence  and  luxury  and 
comfort-worship,  a  silent  contempt  indeed  will 
be  poured  upon  the  gleam  of  gold;  when 
Christ  is  lived,  no  time  will  remain  for  doubt 
or  compromise  or  double-dealing,  none  for 
strife  or  jealousy  or  idle  talk  or  vain-glorying 
or  malice  or  avarice  or  hate,  none  for  anxiety 
or  worry,  since  living  Christ  will  pull  the 
sting  out  of  yesterday  and  the  terror  out  of 
to-morrow,  causing  pardon  to  pour  out  lavishly 
upon  the  past  and  hope  to  flow  freely  into  the 
future;  when  Christ  is  lived,  no  time  will  re- 
main for  anything  that  makes  for  the  wreckage 
of  this  fleshly  temple  of  wonder  nor  its  im- 
mortal indwelling  tenant,  there  will  be  no 
such  waste  as  now  is  seen  of  splendid  human 
stuff;  when  Christ  is  lived,  there  will  be 
ushered  in  the  reign  of  a  great,  world-wide, 
sympathetic  brotherhood,  capital  and  labor 
will  be  no  more  at  variance,  wars  will  cease, 


Earthly  Discords. 

and  man  will  not  be  found  trampling  his  love- 
liest gardens  into  fields  of  dust;  when  Christ 
is  lived,  one  child  born  into  the  world  in  every 
ten  will  not  be  destitute,  positive  want  and 
chronic  misery  and  squalid  horror  will  not 
abound,  the  millions  of  abject  poor  will  not 
be  driven  to  toil  in  sweatshops  and  mines  and 
factories  for  sixteen  hours  a  day  in  a  world 
where  perhaps  six  hours  a  day  was  intended 
by  the  Master  Workman  as  a  full  day's  trib- 
ute; when  Christ  is  lived,  the  traffic  in  all 
forms  of  trickery  and  the  tearful  traffic  in 
thirst  will  not  be  slow  in  passing,  marriage 
will  not  be  found  with  the  lines  of  loveliness 
marred  and  bruised  beyond  cognition.  For 
living  Christ  means  loving  Christ,  loving 
as  he  loved,  loving  whom  he  loved,  loving 
because  he  loved.  "We  love  him  because  he 
first  loved  us,"  or  as  the  Revised  Version 
more  correctly  and  more  forcefully  translates, 
"We  love  because  he  first  loved  us."  We 
love  the  outcast,  the  Magdalen,  the  leper,  be- 
cause he  first  loved.  We  love  the  unlovely 
because  he  first  loved.  From  the  great  flame 
above  we  get  a  little  spark  for  our  own  fire- 
side; our  torch  is  lighted  at  the  sun.  So  we 
fall  back  on  the  psalmist,  "all  our  springs  are 
214 


Heaven,  the  Healing  Harmony. 

in  Thee,"  all  our  hope  is  in  Thee,  all  our 
power  is  from  Thee: 

"Back  of  the  loaf  is  the  snowy  flour, 
And  back  of  the  flour  is  the  mill ; 
And  back  of  the  mill  is  the  sheaf 

And  the  shower 

And  the  sun, 
And  the  Father's  will." 

Chateaubriand,  who  has  been  called  the 
greatest  master  of  the  French  tongue,  when 
he  stood  before  Niagara  one  hundred  years 
ago,  and  saw  twilight  fall  upon  the  plunge, 
said,  "It  is  not  within  the  power  of  words  to 
express  the  grandeur  of  this  scene. ' ' 

And  even  less  is  it  within  the  power  of  pen 
or  picture  to  tell  the  glory  of  that  time  when 
Christ's  full  reign  shall  have  come,  when  he 
shall  have  dominion  from  sea  to  sea. 

"For  then  indeed  the  wilderness  and  soli- 
tary place  shall  be  glad  and  the  desert  shall 
rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  It  shall 
blossom  abundantly  and  rejoice  even  with  joy 
and  singing.  The  parched  ground  shall  be- 
come a  pool  and  the  thirsty  land  springs  of 
water;  in  the  habitation  of  dragons,  where 
each  lay,  shall  be  grass  with  reeds  and  rushes. 
And  the  ransomed  of  the  Lord  shall  return 
and  come  to  Zion  with  songs  and  everlasting 

2T5 


Earthly  Discords. 

joy  upon  their  heads;  they  shall  obtain  joy 
and  gladness,  and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall 
fiee  away. ' ' 

"Joy  of  the  comfortless,  light  of  the  straying, 
Hope  of  the  penitent,  fadeless  and  pure; 
Here  speaks  the  Comforter,  tenderly  saying — 
Earth  has  no  sorrow  that  heaven  cannot  cure. 

"Here  see  the  Bread  of  Life;  see  waters  flowing 
Forth  from  the  throne  of  God,  pure  from  above ; 
Come  to  the  feast  of  love;  come,  ever  knowing 
Earth  hath  no  sorrow  but  heaven  can  remove." 


2l6 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY" 
AND  SONS  COMPANY,  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL, 


TMs  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


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BR 
125       McLeod  - 

"WeSe — Earthly — 
discorda. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    001  099  378  o 


/MM^^LZj 


UNIVERSITY  of  UALllJUKM. 
AT 


